Tuesday, 1 December 2009

Muted


.

File:Hasegawa Tohaku, Pine Trees.jpg




















The reader alone
in the empty house

beheld the distant haze
of the December hills

through bluish clouds
above the empty house

as if someone lived there,
the fire eye in the pines

quavering.
The winds

muted the night
swept by rain.







Pine trees: Hasegawa Tohaku, 16th c. (Tokyo National Museum)

5 comments:

  1. Nights do seem muted when they are swept by rain. Very true. Or did you mean the winds were muted? I like the word "quavering" too. To me it suggests notes being played by the wind...

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  2. This will always be one
    of the views from a
    poet's house

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  3. Pinkerbell,

    Thank you once again for your receptivity and delicacy. All those readings become part of the right reading.

    Charles,

    Yes: perfectly clear. Permanently clouded.

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  4. Tom – as Charles says, the view from a poet’s house. Especially one who is exiled in paradise. With your indulgence, here’s one from the manuscript of that same name.

    What Ink Can’t Capture

    “Fog veils the river and mountains”
    the bridge crosses from one world
    to another where sunlight brushes
    the tips of redwoods and firs
    mist necklaces drift to far off hills
    pockets among the pines puff out
    like paper lanterns illuminated
    from within by slanting light
    crude shadows mark the houses
    half hidden among the trees
    this stillness is always there

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  5. Pat,

    A poem that feels as though it had been writ with the scarce light filtering through fog and cloud as its brush.

    Many thanks for the continuing breath of sustenance.

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