BORN OLD
I was born old,
but am growing younger
with the passing years.
One day I’ll awake
as a child, and put away
all adulterated things.
I’ll run out in the fields
and frolic with the
butterflies,
like a calf who knows
that as he grows younger,
he grows away
from his slaughterhouse fate.
I was born old,
but am growing younger
with the passing years.
So watch me now:
One day I’ll curl up
with a wink, and disappear.
DIANA LEAVES HER BATH
(after Francois
Boucher)
I tramped through the woods,
The image of a painting
Dazzling my vision,
Like the noonday sun stared at
With presumptuous folly—
Seeking that lovely
Bare leg raised like my ardor,
Aching for contact,
Breathless for her breathing form:
Wilderness was my reward.
It is just as well:
If my dreams had come true,
What would have happened?
I would have crossed the fine line
Between the ideal and the real.
She would have killed me,
If I had come upon her
Unexpectedly—
Not because her guard was down,
Her warlike demeanor dropped
With her proud wardrobe,
But because I’d seen the look
In her dull eyes;
Her flesh so desirable
She seemed without desire,
With an innocence
Bordering on stupidity.
And before I’d guessed
There was nothing there but paint
Stroked upon a canvas void,
I’d have been struck dead
By the arrows of her wrath:
The indignation
Of a deity unveiled
Without due adulation.
SNAIL MAIL
When you move at a snail’s pace,
Snail mail’s the way to communicate.
Slowpoke, I scrawl a slimy
Trail across the page:
Read me against the wintry
Whiteness of old age.
To Christians I represent
The deadly sin of Sloth;
To Greeks the time to harvest;
But the Aztec moon god
Carries my shell on his back.
Think of the armor you lack!
Tyrian Purple I secrete,
Prized by the Phonecian brigades,
Sign of royalty and wealth,
Gracing the sails of their fleet,
Embodying good health—
For it’s slow to bleed or fade.
In a Javanese folk tale
Keong Emas is my name:
Princess magically confined
In a snail shell’s golden frame.
That’s a story children should mind,
For it teaches them to be kind.
In France you can eat me:
I can’t escape, I’m too slow.
But just before you say grace,
Take a look at your escargot:
Can you confidently state
You won’t end up on a plate?
Brothers and sisters, take heed:
No matter how fast you speed,
This old world is still a globe.
What goes around comes around,
All before you can make a sound.
Easy and slow: that’s the way to go.
Note: The folktale of Keong Emas, or one of its versions, goes
roughly as follows. There was a king and queen, and another king coveted the
queen and kidnapped her. However, a god who looked favorable on her rescued her
by turning her into a golden snail. He told her to drift along a river in order
to find her husband, which she did. There was an old widow who was fishing one
day and caught the snail in her net and took it home in a jar as a pet. By and
by she noticed that while she went out for the day, someone had prepared a meal
for her and had done her housework. After several days of this, she sneaked up
and peeked through the window to see who was doing this and saw the queen
coming out of the jar. So before the queen could get back to the snailshell,
the old woman rushed in and smashed it, thus breaking the spell, and adopted
the queen as her daughter. Meanwhile the king had been searching for his wife,
and eventually found her with the old woman, and the three of them lived
happily ever after.
IMMORTAL IN SPLASHED INK by Liang Kai, 12th
century
Who would think that such
a miserable wretch as this
would be an Immortal?
How stupid and how vague!
If he is even conscious,
you’d put it on a par with a slug.
And yet—and yet—
experience will vindicate
his nebulosity.
His bald head,
unkempt beard,
ragged robes,
bare chest and feet—
all bespeak the end of birth and death.
He is unborn, for he craves nothing.
He will not die, for self is only a dream.
