Songs from Along the Cove

"Flowers fade to scraps of red. Small gree apricots.
Swallows are flying
and green water circles a house."
– Su Shi, from "To the Tune of 'Prelude to the Water Song.'"






On land we wait for the fiddleheads to unroll
upward to new sun like little jade snakes.

Off the pier, sitting on the edge of the boat,
there has been a garden rising for days –

Wind stirs up the tips of soft waves and rise
at a constant pace against the broken cove.

Soon there will be sailboats where the ice sheet
lay out beyond like steel gray blankets.

As the city crashes along in the background
behind the isthmus preserve I have forgotten

there are such things as days; stretch out a line
to the water garden and listen to the blue song.