"Wind Shifts", and: In the Landscape You Paint with River Water, and: Ingredient, and: Landscape in the Style of Li Cheng, and: To One Who Is Missing

"Wind Shifts"

is what Mi Fu wrote    in the Northern Song,or more accurately

he brushed the characters    we translate intothose words down his

scroll with a naturalness    and elegance you stillfeel 900 years

later, in reproduction    on a postcard. Windshifts, he decided

in this part of his "Poem    Written in a Boaton the Wu River," the rest

of the line not available    to me, so I'm leftalways at this turning

point, hinge that swings    open and shut. A pausethat lasts and becomes

life itself, like someone    returning to a small townto care for a parent

and just staying on. Out    the back window—herwindow now—she sees

everything in need    of repair—the ramshackletool shed bought years ago

at K-mart, the soft,    sagging fences, the little stonepool meant for fish. Everything

in need. It's quiet    and in this clear space Inotice how he's joined

the two characters with    a barely written tendrilof ink vining from

the upper to the straight    downstroke of the lower,an almost withheld

touch—the old swing set,    wind picking up,and the seats start to rock.

In the Landscape You Paint with River Water

Time is the mediumthat thins our daysand carries their colors—waters them down to washesover a neutral ground,pools and streaksof dusk-dark earth.Miniatures, we hintat what lies beyond us,like a postcard ofmountains, like a dreamechoing with rain. Youhave gathered some of thiselement we live byin a small bowl,as though nothingcould be more obviousthan how sparinglyit must be used.You mix it withthe other required materialsyou've packed into this place—the paper'ssolid atmosphere, minerals crushedand squeezed into tubes,the brush's dark, busyflame. This seems tobe how worlds are made,without any fiator pause for breath.Perpetual pouring, thiscataract's obsessive revisions. A smudge of cloud buildsup in the west; treespuddle their thousandand one shades of green.What is landscape butallusion and compromise,current stilled in a cup?The quick stain, rust-wetin the last light,and its settling in.

Ingredient

This morning last night'sgarlic smell warmon my hands, heft

of the knife duringdinner prep, choppingthe block. Walk through

warm evening to the smallmarket for forgottenparsley. Traffic a random

patterning of everyone'sintentions, my desire fora certain metallic green

flavor in the sauce crossingwith someone else'sneed for tangerines and

disposable diapers. Citytrees with brokenbranches, parched leaves,

like a species bredto survive on stone.Fragrant stillness of them

spreading there. As timecoils in this smellsomehow. As words are air.

Landscape in the Style of Li Cheng

What if you could breathe into words what happensduring the quiet relinquishments of rain in the city,the deepening grays and the hard surfaces ringing?Or that fall when my roommate would come homefrom the restaurant at midnight and we would gorunning through the empty streets, then along the river,which was also like a street silkened with oiland drizzle, wet embellishments of neon.Night air and the vague feeling of risk asthe few dots of strangers grew larger to the soundof our slapping feet. All of it just to getthe world more inside us, as we smoked torecreate the movies in the seedy theaters of our lungs. Imagine the ridiculous youth, achingknees from improper shoes, then the calmas the endorphin rush washed island resortsinto our neuroreceptors. Later the pizza atan all-night place in Central Square, foamy beerin plastic cups. You could tell it was mercyby the way nothing happened; so in Allegri'sMiserere the soprano's highest supplications...