Edge Effect: Trails and Portrayals

Bluegum: On the Curving Paths of Golden Gate Park

Bluegum: On the Curving Paths of Golden Gate Park A deep blue layer of scent on the ground, long scrolls of bark, fallings, sickles and minisci of leaves on the path edges. Lakewater loops: Each boat is trailed by a duck or two. Nasturtiums climb the frame of acascade. Painters from a guild even out handmade papers, light-running night scenes, wet octopus, giant iris, tree in half aflail. Tiers and catenasof roofs glitter sequenced across the hills. Egret among remote-control yachts, sailboats, steamvessels to scale, arm-length submarines submersing. Anthologies: Astime goes on, "new poets" move further toward the front of the book, the "old" end. I read of journeys to temples, shrines: "Climbing to the Monastery of Perception," "Visiting the Chan Master Chengru & the KalapatiXiao at Their Hermitage on Song Hillock," "Traveling to the Dwelling of Li, Man of the Mountains, and Writing This on His Walls." The water keeps gliding, crooking, elliptical. On a stone stage:A pond slider, lifting its neck, acts a still role among currents of boots and toes. And all around the greenness and living fibrousness, winds in the woods, feathers of fog and realfeathers in tops of cypresses, pines. 66 Mist-drip into ground. Perimeter of houses the tints of beachcombings, shells turned up or over, accordant white and peach-light calciums, pale green nacres, hills of dwelling-shells patterned after, paralleling,waves, water-crests, and sea-fetch valleys.Rooms tight, nearby and deposited, washed acrossdistances, sanddollars blanching, eateries with neonfish-markings for the deep of night. Wang Wei, translated, says, "When birds arrive he speaks of the Dharmaagain" and "Before, this far awayplace just clung to rock amid cloud-mists: Today it is all around my pillow and mat. How can I stay just for a while? I should render service for an entire life." And to whom? to what? Here I am—old— but I remember my life from the time I learned of indelible ink, just south, over that blue rangewhite in fog. But the surfaces it was written on— 67 Bluegum: On the Curving Paths of Golden Gate Park T W O : T R A I L S silk labels, slick box lids, lists for rain and mildew and illuminations that fadeare speckles now and crumbs and wisps. Service for life: as red-beaded banks of toyon bolster the birds and leather bergenia's moist leaves soothe the rough newts. 68 ...