Deep Skies

Through Idaho on the final leg of the trip today. Spectacular beauty all the way! 

We passed hayfields, cornfields, winter wheat coming up, and lava beds and other wonders.

And when we got here, a copy of Bei Dao's book by my chair right where I left it, 

with a bookmark at this poem. It's a good thing it is short, and will be easy to type

because I don't remember being this tired.

Glad to be here, the leaves are just turning, so I will have "two autumns"

I go

you remain

two autumns

(The famous haiku by either Buson or Shiki, depending on whom you consult.)

Untitled

hawk shadow flickers past

fields of wheat shiver

I'm becoming one who explicates summer

return to the main road

put on a cap to concentrate thoughts

if deep skies never die

Bei Dao, translated by David Hinton

The Rose of Time; new and selected poems; edited by Eliot Weinberger, New Directions, 2010, page 107.