MOVING DAY

 

If Mount Fuji said

"I am tired

Of being here;

I want to be there"

Who would dare say no?

(Well, possibly

A cat. Cats 

Are not afraid of mountains.)

TAKE NOTE

 

Death expects you to type his name

In bold caps like this: DEATH.

If there's a loose button on his shirt

DEATH expects you to repair it.

When you overhear his name DEATH

Wants you to whip your head around

And strain to hear what's being said of him.

DEATH will not answer petitions beginning

"Yo, DEATH! How's it hanging?"

LOVE POEM

 

I have no picture of you, just one you took

Of a tall house, its windows lit against the night.

I was there; you borrowed my camera to take it

(In those days I always had a camera with me

And three or four extra rolls of film in little jars 

Tied to the camera-strap). 

WISLAWA

 

Szymborska, I cannot read Polish

But I have a fat volume of your poems

Translated into Portuguese

Which I also can't read.

PERSPECTIVE

 

If Mount Fuji said

"I am tired

Of being here;

I want to be over there"

Who would dare say no?

(Probably a cat.

Cats are not impressed

By mountains

Or anything, really.)

NB

 

There's no reason you need now to know 

But someday it'll be useful, maybe, to've been told that

Three or four or seven blocks away from 

Your starter house (where you've been 

For thirty-two years because it's

Sometimes hard to get started and there

May be no good reason to since if destiny's

All this while been desperately looking for you 

What hope it'll find you if you blow along

Before every stiff wind?) there's a storage room where

Unemployed shadows, some in almost mint condition

And others with the ragged look that comes from being

Too long on the run from their enemies, gather.

Perhaps you'll have sudden call for a new shadow

That can't be traced or possibly you'll be looking

For advice on entering the shadow trade 

Or maybe you'll never have call to remember

That to find your new best friends it's important

To turn left then right and don't look back.

SMOKE

 

The first time you smell it

You think " There;s no mistaking it;

That's the smell of burning bone."