Evening

From the twelfth floor watch the streets empty.

Neon billboards with obscene smiles

Hover over warehouses and restaurants,

Stripping bare the last pedestrians,

Seeing through their jeans and dockers,

Giving each his slap in the ass.

           

And strangely two couples one on each block

Are strolling as the streetlights flicker on,

Each pair in a different world...

Out of the alley a shadow tags one of them.

Did they believe that they were safe?

Do they believe they are alone?

 

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Rain

 

Old washerwoman soaking fabrics,

Turning faces to the pavement,

Scrubbing dirt from gravel,

Polishing the roads to deep blacks

That sparkle when the sun comes out—

 

No more the drugged glow,

But clear beams white as piano keys

Glorious hymnal sunshine

After rain, that ripens figs.

 

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Oaks by the lake

 

Love songs of the earth to sky,

outstretched yearning hands,

brown glissando of limbs,

earth muscles, locked in eternal dance,

trills of notes that shiver leaves,

prayer carved in wood.

 

How well they hold themselves together

when the sun burns into everything,

when we are only half alive,

inside their shadows hide flocks of birds.

 

And they’ve tasted the hours of the day

with a thousand tongues, joyously received

sun, rain or wind

with a thousand outstretched hands.

 

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Tangerine

 

            The hillside tickles with a shimmering lace at its fringe, promising pleasures. It peels aside, rind after rind... a patch of streetlights beneath, and sweet taste of a sunset ripe, carried to me by the wind.

            The fruit peels smoothly, a view of white roads and golden fields. The landscape unrolls before my eyes and anxious fingers. I take a bite and my whole body plunges into juice, the evening wind splashing over my face.

 

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Wind

 

West wind from the sea: It brings joy to long hair, children and willows by the lake. In the city night it stiffens those who sleep in doorways. A thousand flags are flapping, pointing the way, and on them it bestows kisses as it moves on.

The trees heave the story one to another, the waves toss it like a ball,

the grass tingles with the message, and the birds take it to the cities...

            Autumn! Like all rumors, each time a different tale is told... everything it touches adds something of its own, precious drops of joys and pain... so now this wind becomes the sound of laughter and the honking of cars, screams in the night and unheard cries... the wind takes something from each and every one... In the street I also open my arms. Take up my love, and bring it to wherever you are!