Ozasa

Empty quiet by the window, and an empty shell
Where my seat of life should be –
cry all you will, birds: you do me no good.
Quiet as the mind, the seat of life, without a thought;
And I wonder: what am I to do?
Noisy at the window, birds, with empty heads –
you do me good, cry all you will.

What is that – blue sky? The children unperturbed, although
     our spring remains a hue behind a cloud.
A tennis ball, and then its boy, manic in career,
     come down behind my trailing rose.
Much they have in common, too – no flowers yet, but limpid green
Set upon by aphids; hard to tell so early on
     what will be a flower bud, what will be a thorn.
The boy approaches: open-faced and canny – speculative we, and faithful.

iii

See there: that building draped across the hill,
finished at last, and sprouting laundry.
Let’s reflect a while, and watch the laundry dry.
We won’t be lost in thought; or unusually sad.
Imagine where the laundry was – fly across the taiga
With the ghosts in bespoke suits, to Paris and arcades,
before our fate returns in soiled clothes.

Head and shoulders only, of a man on the new building:
     distant on the roof, and small.
He moves down closer to the edge; stands entire at the railing.
Time and space were his to compass: to tinker with the ready-made, like me.
Now he is a man against the sky, and everything could be
     the product of his hands.
He may disclaim authority when pressed, but makers we remain –
     liable but shifty – all the same.

Our Fukien trader consults his herbals, works a deal,
     gives advice on pets and parking –
Taking the night air along our quiet street:
Turning at the ruined shrine; following the light
     along the cracks in his foundations.
We are uninvited strangers here – odd voices; excess paperwork –
     never quite desired.
We sniff at one another, bearing teeth and stilling tails.

Last week were weeds up there, and today a new foundation
     where the red earth left – another dumptruck emigration.
All around was ferrous dirt after the war: it stained the cars,
So they pave it over, dig it out. It’s buried still, below my garden,
     too deep to do the flowers any good.
Everyone remembers it, steps lightly in the rainy season,
     when it bubbles up and washes down the hill.
No one looks to find the source. It could be anyone’s.

vii

We in our old places, near the ground: we share the bugs
     they don’t yet know above, in the new building.
Our insects are eager climbers – seasonal, with rain and heat –
They rise and move among us: ants and pill bugs, centipedes.
Those new people are a class apart from us, above
     our level – but the bugs will climb.
Wealth and other virtues temporal will settle in their place,
     as the leggy rise, and greet the season.

viii

A wild cat gazes at me from the roof: dishevelled avatar,
It says – that what I see is not what it appears to be,
     and doesn’t care if I agree.
I go about my business, a small part of a small world;
I seek a life I can believe in, though it often disappoints –
     you are profligate and callous, every one.
And it goes off in pursuit of fruitful compensation:
     sun and shade, and food, and time at ease.

Boys out in the street, they’re laughing rough, kicking a can –
not just toying with it, but striking out with force.
Who is it schools the angels in their violence and noise?
The girls, too, are not lost yet – but I see them chasing cats;
I hear them shrieking at their brothers.
I go out to be commanding when a ball hits my old window:
and I am stupid to be angry; and they are stupid, too.
Do call us in to dinner, love: before the world falls.

Summer now – and I am half-asleep, in a breeze that cools the sun.
I hear birds in casual and sunlit conversation;
     and the grind and thud of power hammers, and an afternoon quiz show.
Then Mary had a little lamb picks up on a piano, and I wonder at it –
     half asleep – which Mary? And which lamb?
Birds pipe up, and I awake; the tune resolves into an old pop song, then scales.
Too hot – it will be soon – but the afternoons are cool. I face the breeze,
     to smell the rose-vine growing, to catch the quiet sounds.