YOUR PASSING, WHILE ROOMING
AT A JAPANESE RICE FARM

by Ian Haight

 

 

Alone among weed-thorns, you roamed
black hills, found stream-sourcing
springs;

              but here, ice drifts in a river’s tug.

Your coat coppered in the sun’s fingers; 

              but here, the moon limns clouds. 

You sat silent in the night suns’ light,
watched for disturbances
in the farm fields. 

                              Here, the white
of Hikone Castle—
                           snow falls
a forest burnt, ashes.

                              Here, I long for a
longer premonition, for my eyes
to have been given weeks of daylight:
                                                                    last night
I saw you free-roaming sweet grass
by the river’s curve under oak trees.

 

 

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