Fourth March Selection

If you are there right now
please offer incense
and pay homage
to Benzaiten
goddess of art
wisdom, and knowledge
then crouch down low
on the edge of Shinobazu Pond
and clap your hands
three fat claps
and when the
orange and white splotched
koi responds to you
please
feed her bread crumbs
from your pockets.
If so inclined,
In the evening
spread out flattened
cardboard boxes
and a blanket
on the edge of the walk
in between the red
Kannon temple
and the waters
of Shinobazu
Sit down beneath
the cherry blossoms
amongst dear friends
you may have never met,
The sake, other spirits
and the bento box
are optional.
Sit all night long
beneath the extended
silhouettes of cherry branches
and under the perigee moon,
saying nothing the whole time.
If you are fortunate
in a flurry of petals
the wind
may finally speak to you .

--Glen Snyder

Fifth March Selection

Juncos

In the morning I look out the window.

The juncos are busy in the rain and the wet grass.

It breaks my heart.

I bite into green onions;

their cool sharp taste breaks my heart.

All these things:

the sound of an unseen mandolin, strummed.

It is raining, the sun comes, two crows fly across the sky.

My friend, knowing I am coming to his house, to welcome me, has bought me a gift, a

muffin.

I am sick and miss meeting with my childhood friends; the next week I am well and they

smile when I enter the room.

My children are so beautiful that to think of them breaks my heart.

I send you a note, I send you something I wrote long ago,

I am saying I love you, you have broken my heart, I am thanking you.

I have asked Coyote about this (on that day a woman named Marie.)

"When the silence descends, my heart is broken.... am I doing something wrong?"

I tell you how She locked on my eyes, fierce, penetrating.

She said, "Amos! How can you be awake in this world and not be broken-hearted!"

You understand: it broke my heart to hear this; it breaks my heart to remember.

Look, I am set free. I become crow growing distant in the sky against the ragged grey clouds.

You see my footprints.

In the cafe a mother is telling her child a story;

"The dog ate the mop, the cat's in a hurry, the hen's in a flurry.”

The boy is wearing a red coat,

the boy laughs.

--Amos Clifford

Greetings,

February Selections are here. We enthusiastically welcome new Jurors Ellen Fryer and Ellen Skagerberg. Thank you!

1st Selection, February, 2011

Runa Luminosa

Caminas y desandas en esta dirección

completas esos círculos que evocan infinitos

me llevas en susurro por un sendero echado

vienes y te vas como emigrante oleaje.

Runa luminosa de sombras pasajeras,

de destinos cantados en estrofas de eclipse.

Aquí está el paradero, aquí una pausa ciega.

Enrédate en mis ojos tan velados de arrobo

y vuélvete el sedante para esta noche larga.

--Lilyan de la Vega

Luminous Rune

You walk toward me and retreat from me in one line.

You complete these circles that evoke the infinite.

You carry me, whispering, to my destined path.

You come and go, like a wandering swell.

Luminous rune of passing shadows,

of destinies sung in strophes of eclipse,

Here is the resting place, here in this blind pause;

Tangle with my eyes, sleepless with rapture,

Be my sleepy potion this long night.

--translation by Deanna Hopper

2nd Selection

Happy Hour

The amateurs have gathered in the bar,

some of whom can barely keep it down,

and at their yacky-yack and har-dee-har,

the shelves of mirrored bottles sigh, and frown.

The pro keeps to himself. He does not sneer;

these tourists in his kingdom pay the rent.

He gestures graciously to this idea;

his vodka smiles at him, beneficent.

At last the hour is over. Neon blinks

on empty stools; the bottles all relax.

The king abides, his forehead to his drink,

and waits the stroke that cuts the scene to black.

He shudders as it takes him: mirrored high,

sees all the bottles, sneering, empty, dry.

--Deanna Hopper