The Night Song of an Odd Day

I

the wind comes up from the southeastI will, for the crookedness of the heron's western return, sing the song of duskO, sky after drinking,        take your sleepy resentment to wash my handstake my hands to bury them within your dizzinesstake this sourness as a lemonlisten to me, wash yourself over the halfmoons of stars        drink me

II

drink me. I have been brewed;        your sun even wraps me dozens of thousands of timesbeen sick. I've been cleansing numberless corpses' eyesI've passed through one snapped reed in the shadow thrown by the pond        the quietness of trigonometryI've become quiet,        taste it, perhaps the sea drinks your setting sunstill there's your archipelago. I will make a wanton of your halfmoon

III

I've been unfastening from your distance,        on earth I already am an archipelagoI still might be an instrument, a zitherthen comfort me, the cold wind comes in from the northwest, then strum mefrom darkness, cannot see the ocean currents        from the ocean currents, cannot see your salty salty road

IV

now the sparrow's flight is just the sigh of darknessbut I truly had the slack of something soaringthe sea of heaven, I have kissed the long hair of your canyonI pass through your world's dream's forest of shapeshifting,        the orchard of every star

V

walk between your two cheeks, salty salty road        joined we are the crossroad's whirlwind of small dancing stridesour look, our stare, is ghost money you could cashO, sky of a billion eyes,        count to yourself the coldness and silence of a million lightyears        look at the public cemetery where I had once worshippedgraves of casualtiesgraves of the strickengraves of the executed …but my surprise is from the wilty growth of manmade flowers

VI

noiseless knock of the clouds,my memory leans on sleep dreaming the clay cellar colder, the chimney established        this dancing smoke whips away        the nightstar's flare's herdsman; another one once tended the gravesI tended the city; another, pity;noiseless knock of the clouds, on a plank bridge I once        took a fish in dream for awakening,O, so much youth;        how small a stream, closing the coffin once is just one bridge

VII

the haze, the flowers within wilting        remember the day of the flipped-boat's brightnesscolor the tear's brightness, the tree after the rain,        just after painting the tree amid the tree's journey;        the resting tree;        the tree before the grave;      within the grave, the tree's       roots, a skull amid the rootscolor the unscoopable smile of the deep corpse, floating up the rainbow

VIII

the cock crows, where are the weak-warm stars? stay for the dreamthe dog barks,        now stop arguing about the time coming from the chime        clock between the two floorsdrink the dead timemoonlight, take the spiral staircase's "not quite" and leave it,        wait to leave itstay for the dream,        wind, take my song and go

IX

take my song and simply pot it, shelter it, astringent dawn        shelter the potted water arumlisten to this harmonious floral dish        this trembling loop calling my heart; only,        it's too farlisten to last night's dawnlight of the coming of the seedleafmake it the dream's calligraphy

X

listen to me answer all praise and all condemnationnight went eventually there will be a dawn that comesI take every tear and ascend them to stars, before dawnall rain fails to dewrising meadow as a bedfalling bayonets as an orchardin the wind, within deep thoughts        I take the trees of the garden andascend them as torches