The prettiest ghost of a moth flies by lilacs
Blossoming in our front yard, white flutter,
Purple blooms. Not quite night but not quite
Dawn, the light rising, bedtime for moths.
Who in the mountains can remain long?
It is almost the end of May, of spring
In the bright palace of our world, profane.
Outside of the temple of the lake, lost waters
Wander, outcast clouds, fallen mist and fog,
Bones and husks of broken hermit dragons,
Rendered insignificant and random, ghostly
Etymologies, the outlines of lost meanings,
There, not there. History haunts all poems.
The uncertainties that govern light and water
Govern moths and clouds, govern the poet,
Compose the dark forests through which sail
The vaporous ships of words. No wonder
The Chinese once believed the trees
Themselves produced the mountain clouds.
Outside of the temple sprawl the dwellings
Of the details and the gods, in the feather
Left in the grass by a crow hunting snails,
In the unrinsed cans piled outside the shed,
In the soggy paperwork left out on the porch
In the damp, in the disused greenhouse, ajar
In all weathers, in the green, stinging nettles
Springing up around the raw tree stumps,
In the oarlight of dawn through the clouds,
In the words that rise to mind, in the pause.
The ghost of the prettiest moth withdraws.
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