{"id":11102,"date":"2015-07-09T00:02:22","date_gmt":"2015-07-09T04:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yang-sheng.com\/?p=11102"},"modified":"2015-07-09T03:07:21","modified_gmt":"2015-07-09T07:07:21","slug":"poetry-renga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yang-sheng.com\/?p=11102","title":{"rendered":"Poetry — Renga"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Echoes of emptiness]<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Renga<\/strong><\/h1>\n

By Rene Navarro and Nadine Sarreal<\/strong>
\n October 1999-April 2000<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Traditional renga was a group activity in which each participant displayed his wit by spontaneously composing a poem in response to the poem that came before; the more interesting the relationship between the two poems the more impressive the poet’s ability. [Wikipedia]\"Picture11\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(1)<\/p>\n

The black bear has upset the garbage bin again:
\nlike a thief it came, like a ghost it went.<\/p>\n

(2)<\/p>\n

Wooden clapper, metal tubes: still and silent
\nUntil the wind blows night song through them.<\/p>\n

(3)<\/p>\n

With the winter wind blowing, the pipes shake like bones
\nin the dark, as I listen to the footfalls of an invisible beast.<\/p>\n

(4)<\/p>\n

Damp earth soaks up his hot retreat;
\nAll is whispered, but this memory of sound.<\/p>\n

(5)<\/p>\n

Memory is all we keep — of fear and love and pain.
\nThe keepsake echo earth, lake and woods retain.<\/p>\n

(6)<\/p>\n

By the edge of the water, a yellow bird, black beaked,
\nPerches, waiting, head tilted at the dawn breaking overhead.<\/p>\n

(7)<\/p>\n

Yellow, golden bird: bright harbinger of light:
\nYour song brings the sun out of the clouds.<\/p>\n

(8)<\/p>\n

The sky seems to ripple in the morning wind
\nMirroring the movement on the water of fish below.<\/p>\n

(9)<\/p>\n

It is an ancient trout: yellow, green, red, and blue,
\nIts sinuous body rainbowing colors in the dawn sun.<\/p>\n

(10)<\/p>\n

He darts beneath a lotus leaf and nibbles on the stem;
\nLight, dark, light, pass his calm unblinking eyes<\/p>\n

(11)<\/p>\n

Above the waters of the bluegreen mountain lake a blue heron
\nrising: its flight hardly rippling the surface dappled with light.<\/p>\n

(12)<\/p>\n

Into the thin air, he, swift and soundless, bears a message
\nTo the emperor of the high wind: green growing blue sky.<\/p>\n

(13)<\/p>\n

His wings lift him above the pines and the oaks and maples
\nIn magical ascension: his body dissolving in the autumn sun.<\/p>\n

(14)<\/p>\n

At a certain height, a heron forgets he is bird apart from non-bird;
\nHe stretches his stick legs back and believes he is running.\"reikiglowinghands-sm\"<\/p>\n

(15)<\/p>\n

A most difficult thing but God does that, too, sometimes:
\nruns instead of flies just to feel how it is to be a mere human.<\/p>\n

(16)<\/p>\n

God, heron, lake fish, unseen beast, black bear in the bin: merging.
\nI remember this whole piece solitude when all beings come together.<\/p>\n

(17)<\/p>\n

Last night, in the halo of headlights, two deer nibbling the grass.
\nToday, hunters wearing camouflage are sneaking into the woods.<\/p>\n

(18)<\/p>\n

They smell of metal and fire, woolen caps covering their heads;
\nOrange feelings leak from their eyes and they laugh at themselves.<\/p>\n

(19)<\/p>\n

I wondered what happened to the deer that nibble at the grass
\nOr to the mythic bear who kept upending the garbage bin for food?<\/p>\n

(20)<\/p>\n

What do they make of us, two-legged creatures who smell of fear?
\nThe deer now hanging over a mantle, and the bear, a rug on the floor?<\/p>\n

(21)<\/p>\n

I see Isabel walking on the shore of the misted lake, all 28 pounds of her,
\nHands clasped behind her, eyes staring at birds shrieking in the distance.<\/p>\n

(22)<\/p>\n

When we see what exists, and we verify with our senses what is
\nSometimes our minds slip back and look for what was, what has been lost.<\/p>\n

(23)<\/p>\n

It is a human trait, this journey back and forth, from the future to the past,
\nfrom the past to the future and the elusive present: what’s there to salvage?<\/p>\n

(24)<\/p>\n

The matter of proportion and the issue of timing, these weigh most
\nin action and inaction. When to move and how far?<\/p>\n

(25)<\/p>\n

I look up and there’s a crescent moon in the sky,
\nI look within and the same moon shines in the dark.<\/p>\n

(26)<\/p>\n

The white of that moon against the darkness within
\nPresses away my hungers and cools my blood.<\/p>\n

(27)<\/p>\n

A woman who, in silence, quenches the thirst of the heart,
\nAnd soothes the anguish of the lonely search for the deep life.<\/p>\n

(27a)<\/p>\n

Beneath the darkness a quiet river flows
\nspinning into the navel of the granite rock.<\/p>\n

(28)<\/p>\n

Eyesight failing, so turn within where the view is a partial mirror
\nOf the path before you, a squirrel, nervous, and the green green iguana.<\/p>\n

(29)<\/p>\n

Close to the heart of stillness where the senses cannot go,
\nthe pathways disappear and a whole universe pulses with life.\"Picture12\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(30)<\/p>\n

From the smallest and emptiest room of thought can burst
\nOpen strength and courage to last a lifetime of struggle.<\/p>\n

(31)<\/p>\n

Strength and courage, as small as the mustard seed of faith,
\nthat spark fire as they encounter life’s dark granite rock.<\/p>\n

(32)<\/p>\n

A pile of dried leaves stirs in the breath of wind, changes shape
\nWhen each leaf settles again, it has lost its beginning place.<\/p>\n

(33)<\/p>\n

What was the face we had in the beginning, before there was an I?
\nWhat was the shape of the leaf before it drifted in the autumn wind?<\/p>\n

(34)<\/p>\n

Pin a moment down, wrestle from it its truth and watch,
\nAs you catch your breath, the shapes of fact shift and change.<\/p>\n

(35)<\/p>\n

The chimes are quiet at dusk, the breeze is still like the woods.
\nIt’s the silence of flux, the moment before anything stirs on earth.<\/p>\n

(36)<\/p>\n

Time, not a circle, but a spiral, moving up and around an axis
\nSo that tomorrow, we will meet again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Rene Navarro \/ Nadine Sarreal<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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