GRASSPAPER

My mother's walls had grass paper on them
As no other house I've known.
Rubbings of bright colored temple girls
Wore high headdresses and smiles
That made the bearded man with the clarinet
Urge his companions to play louder
(You could see their music; it condensed
Into bobbing circles over their heads)
The temple girls approved and clacked
Little cymbals that looked like egg cups.
Each book on the shelves -- so many shelves! --
Waited for my father to passionately read them
Leaving them filled with bits of paper
Which  still await him . "See: Li Po's dog," says one
"The rabbi thinks he is real," says another.