Ten Lines

~ after Kobayashi Issa


What sign will let us know the anxious time is over?

Windows unlatch— over  rooftops, the everyday sunrise.

Within  sun-struck leaves, a small roundness waves: first green, then sweet.

Sweet note of soursop on the tongue, popsicle flash of a childhood summer.

Childhood the tent through which we ran in and out until the river called.

The river could always tell what you carried, what you left behind.

Carry a stone, two, three; skip them across the water.

Across the liquid surface, the moon's half-raft tonight.

Tonight and every night, to hold the beloved's face in your hands.

I put my hands together and make the sign for wings.