Part 41

Behind the Heian Jingu shrine, cherry
blossoms weep into sky-coloured ponds.
A week early, a week late, there would
have been no pink canopy between
silence and sky. Transience, perhaps, is
the final gauge of unbearable beauty.
An extended longing, an occasional

alleviation. Like raindrops. Or love.
Dead flowers mix with the soil and
become other things: fruits, different
flowers, a bird. Ephemeral things. When
love runs out, it becomes a poem. A
forever being. A trellis of quiet words
peering into the water. Like tree rings, a

poem cut open can tell you its age.
Meaning grows inside it in concentric
circles. Each measuring the growing
distance between poem and poet. Poet
and love. What if we had another hour?
Another month? Another way? The
kurinji flower blooms once in twelve

years in the Nilgiris, staining the low
mountains blue. We are tethered to
primal timetables. Spring. Summer.
Tide. By the pond, the poem waits,
watching another generation of golden
koi swish their tails as they swim,
heedless, through its metered shadow.

(Kyoto, Japan)