bird call in stream valley
a man at rest: tea olive blossoms fall
this night still: springtime mountain empty—
the moon comes out, alarming mountain birds:
for a time they chatter within the stream valley
© Jack Hayes 2015
based on Wang Wei’s niǎo míng jiàn鸟鸣涧
Image links to its source on Wiki Commons:
‘After Wang Wei's "Snow Over Rivers and Mountains"’: Wang Shih-min, 1668
[none of Wang Wei’s original paintings survive, but there are a number of later paintings based on his work]
After Li Bai’s “cháng xiāng sī”
eternal longing
in the city called eternal peace
crickets weave autumn weeping by the gold-railed well,
frost clings to my bamboo mat—bitter, bitter cold—tints it wintry
this single lantern flickers; I want to extinguish thoughts,
& roll back the curtain & look at the moon—my sighs hollow—
the beautiful one’s a blossom far off past the edge of clouds
above is the black expanse of lofty heavens
below is the green water with breakers & floods
the heavens endless, the road remote, my spirit’s flight bitter—
the dream spirit won’t arrive, the mountain pass rises arduous eternal longing
my heart laid waste
Jack Hayes © 2015
based on Li Bai’s Cháng xiāng sī 长相思
Image links to its source on Wiki Commons
The Mount Huashan in Xi'an [Xi’an is modern Chang’an—i.e., the city named “endless peace”, which is what Chang’an means]: photo by Flickr user Darren On The Road who has made it available under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
it becomes tiresome: all melody—the sparrow’s song with
no traffic roar behind it—sparrow in the hedge I never
see it emerge
& just last night I could see my future in
chill air outside the hospital walking through drizzle uphill
to the bus stop
you aren’t part of it in those cottonwood leaves
fallen yellow by the barbed wire fence in an Idaho
cemetery where we
could see our breath & smiled for a
photograph—today a drizzle falls while a pale yellow
sun tries to burn no
brighter than those leaves & as
damp in an eastern sky; when I walk out this morning on-
to the city’s pavement
I’ll put on that same jacket
for 5 miles looking for someone else who is likewise not
inhabiting that future—
that man smiling next to you in the
the country graveyard: myself & not, & when that
future opens its throat:
a sparrow in the hedge drowned in
the number 4 bus line’s rale & wheeze & cottonwoods
cast off yellow leaves in light
rain: this G chord arpeggiated to the
B string damped in faint air
Jack Hayes
© 2015
Listening to Rain (After Jiang Jie)
(To the tune “Beautiful Lady Yu”)
as a young man listening to rain
amidst exquisite curtains, the courtesans’ song
red candles lighting the salon
in middle age listening to rain
on a transport boat running the big river,
sky falling low, away from my home,
a single goose bawling on the west wind
in old age listening to rain,
a guest of monks, hair white as starshine:
sorrow, joy, separation, union, move me no more;
let rain keep falling until brilliant dawn
Jack Hayes
© 2015
Based on Jiang Jie: (虞美人) 听雨
(yú měi rén) tīng yǔ
Image links to its source on Wiki Commons
北宋 范宽 雪景寒林 (“Journey Between Stream & Mountains”): Fan K'uan, 1010 CE
Public Domain
calculus of loss: two plane tree leaves yellow-brown
each curled like a hand sinking in the puddle on
the corner below the stop sign
descending chromatic bass line in E minor the
silver flute discharging the tune the Willamette
swirls frigid beneath the Steel Bridge
I tell you goodbye each afternoon the clouds the
blue sky the pine trees draining through the blinds &
question myself if I mean it
so we talked about death your death just the gray
speckled stones beyond the window eaves-
dropped & an empty gray sky
to my right as I walk the apple leaves are rust to
my left as I walk the hawthorn leaves are rust a
waning moon will rise bone-white
by evening—it’s easy to say the self is an
abstraction until that self peers through eyes seeing tomorrow
through a west window glazed by
sunset & lights in the sky you say the international
space station sinking nearer & nearer earth &
then not even rocks not even absence
not a photograph not a snow drift not a white house
the plane tree at the corner sheds a brown leaf to concrete
large as my outstretched hand
Jack Hayes
© 2015
milk and eggs
this girl
got bold eyes
and she hide them
behind cool shades.
this girl cool.
this girl,
she look at the men
and she look at the women, too
this girl don't care that they see
they see black
they see sky looking back
see their own ideas
don't see them bold eyes
but they know
they feel that
in their skin
the small of their back
shoot through them
that look
those eyes
bold eyes
this girl
she smile
she walk on
a thousand adulteries of the heart
twelve of the mind
milk and eggs
back home for tea
Mairi Graham-Shaw
© 2015
Image links to its source on Wiki Commons
Kniende in orange-rotem Kleid (Kneeling Female in Orange-Red Dress) - drawing; 1910: Egon Schiele
Public domain
zinnias for all their red gold violet spectrum
beside the gray sidewalk
appear neither glad nor sad at midday—
at midnight aspens in a ditch past your windows rustle
leaves as if rain-struck but
no raindrops fall—last Sunday the
beads of mist on the rosa rugosa alba’s
spent blossom & I thought
teardrops but that was another day—
today Wednesday a pair of Canada geese
paddle in the shadow of
Burnside Bridge as the sun’s
photons kindle glints across the river as
though the water ran metal—
Monday evening the wind chimes
outside your door strike together in bamboo
five-tone song without words ex-
cept the words you add—
the carp thrashing iridescent in a fisherman’s
net in noon sun without
shadows except those in my mind—
gray heron posed in Sunday’s drizzle on a
beached log like a man in a
morning park’s fog practicing tai chi:
weight back relaxed torque spiraling through his
sinews—you recumbent on a distant
lawn in the dark observing the Milky Way
spread out overhead a spangled map of photons &
voids referring to history &
dreams one can’t say out loud
here in afternoon a bridge abutment to thin air &
green metal water & blinding sun
hunkers between two ash trees
Jack Hayes
© 2015
