THE ADVERSARY

Coiled around you is he―
A little blacker than a shadow.

Before my lips reach yours
I have to push him from them.
That's why my kisses

Are so gentle.

He is also coiled around me.
Do you feel his scales as I?

Perhaps that's why we kiss at all—
I know so little.

A POLISH GIRL

You carry the dishes in your hands

But your thoughts are elsewhere:

As if you inwardly knew

That in your kisses is the glow
Of Sobietsky and the heroes;

That your body has the pungent taste
Which the willow-tree and the rose
Perhaps feel in the soil;

And that your hair carries the fragrance
Of the willow and the rose itself.

The Adversary

PORTRAIT

To H. M.

A small tree

Always surrounded by mist,

More often dark but sometimes light-
Very light, almost made of light.
Yet even then between the branches

There is shadow, a wavering gloom.

GONE

It was as though sunshine

Had been thickened

To a human form.

You have left traces

Of rose and orange

On the afternoon.

PLAYING HORSE

Mount, little one.

The horse trots back and forth.
Time is harder than water.

Nights, days, hours,

Shine

Like pools of light.
Where were you, child?

The horse stumbles,

Little one.

TRAVELER

Miles and miles you traveled.

A wise brown bear
Rode you on his back;
Then a bird hopped along

Or flew in front and explained;
And a stone sent a bearded one
With a book.

In your small warm nest you heard Bells rung delicately; and strange calls.

We built you a little house.

We hung up a sun and a moon,
And stars like apples.

The walls we painted red and blue.
We spread out carpets of Bagdad.
And three glasses with sweet wine
We stood in a corner.

Playing Horse

Max Michelson

LACQUER PRINTSV

STREETS

Adapted from the poet Yakura Sanjin, 1769

As I wandered through the eight hundred and eight streets

of the city,

I saw nothing so beautiful

As the Women of the Green Houses,

With their girdles of spun gold,

And their long-sleeved dresses,
Colored like the graining of wood.

As they walk,

The hems of their outer garments flutter open,

And the blood-red linings glow like sharp-toothed maple

leaves

In autumn.

DESOLATION

Under the plum-blossoms are nightingales;

But the sea is hidden in an egg-white mist,

And they are silent.

SUNSHINE

The pool is edged with the blade-like leaves of irises.

If I throw a stone into the placid water,

It suddenly stiffens

Into rings and rings

Of sharp gold wire.

ILLUSION

Sunshine

Walking beside the tree-peonies,

I saw a beetle

Whose wings were of black lacquer spotted with milk.

I would have caught it,

But it ran from me swiftly

And hid under the stone lotus

Which supports the Statue of Buddha.

A YEAR PASSES

Beyond the porcelain fence of the pleasure garden, I hear the frogs in the blue-green rice-fields;

But the sword-shaped moon

Has cut my heart in two.

A LOVER

If I could catch the green lantern of the firefly I could see to write you a letter.

TO A HUSBAND

Brighter than fireflies upon the Uji River Are your words in the dark, Beloved.