Autumn Poem

AUTUMN POEM

1

The field until yesterday
was burning now
it stretches under clouds
& sky unmindful.
And they say the rain
each time it comes
brings autumn that much
closer even more so
autumn borne cicadas
sing out everywhere,
nesting sometimes in a tree
awash in grass.

I smoke a cigarette,
smoke spiraling
through stale air,
I try & try
to stare
at the horizon.
Can’t be done,
The ghosts of heat
& haze
stand up or flop down.
And I find myself alone there,
squatting.

A cloudy sky
dark golden light
plays off now
as it always was,
so high I can’t help
looking down.
I tell you that I live
resigned to ennui,
drawing from my cigarette
three different tastes.
Death may no longer be
so far away.

2

“He did, he said so long & then
he walked away, he walked out
from that door,
the weird smile that he wore,
shiney like brass,
his smile that didn’t look
like someone living.

His eyes like water in a pond
the color when it clears,
or something. He talked
like someone somewhere else.
Would cut his speech up into little pieces.
He used to think of little things
that didn’t matter.”

“Yes, just like that.
I wonder if he knew that he was dying.
He would laugh and tell you
that the stars became him
when he stared at them.
And that was just a while ago.

A while ago. Swore that the clogs
that he was wearing weren’t his.”

3

The grass was absolutely still,
and over it a butterfly was flying.
He took it all in from the veranda,
stood there dressed in his yukata.
And I, you know, would watch him
from this angle. Staring after it,
that yellow butterfly. I can remember now
the whistles of the tofu vendors
back and forth, the telephone pole
clear against the evening sky.
Then he turned back to me and said “I ...
yesterday, I flipped a stone over that weighed
maybe a hundred pounds.” And so I asked
“how come? and where was that?”
Then you know what? He kept on staring at me,
straight into my eyes, like he was getting mad,
or something … That’s when I got scared.

How strange we are before we die …


Nakahara Chuya

Posted over on Poems & Poetics