A tree to trace, eye along
the line, the lace
Photo: Frangipani, Hong Kong
heavy feet
Looks like the footstool has gone through,
into the sidewalk, into the earth.
Like someone's life was heavy.
Photo: New Orleans
lit white
Maybe every museum is a holy place. This one reminds me of the times when we lit white candles on the Tannenbaum.
Photo: Entrance area, LA County Museum of Art
musical clips
This music lives downstairs from my home.
Photo: Fabric wrapped around a hawker's stall, Tai Hang, Hong Kong
the room
Tiny, the room feels more for interrogation than song.
Photo: Karaoke Room, 12 Oil Street, Northpoint, site of the former
Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, soon to be the site of the Arts Promotion Office
I love them more
I heard Maurice Sendak the other day,
the author of 'Where the Wild Things Are'.
He said, 'I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people.
They leave me and I love them more.'
Photo: Honkawa schoolgrounds, a school in Hirsohima
Text: From an NPR interview with Maurice Sendak, 83, and in remembrance of my Uncle Philip (1929-2011)
make a reason
Make a reason to celebrate.
Photo: Opening of exhibition, Japan
Text: I celebrate xtn's birth and friendship.
tennis desk
I have loved ping pong, table tennis, and we have kept such a table ready in the basement. When I see this one outdoors, my love for sport and for word comes forward:
wouldn't the table make a great big desk?
Photo: Lantau Island
mattress glass
How I love to see, first with the eye-mind,
then with the lens, and once again
in the image.
Photo: Dusk in Taipei
cranes in the light
She asks me if there will be another atomic bomb, and I say
I do not know. I say we have to do what we can to stop it from happening. The next day she makes origami cranes and gives them away to new friends.
Photo: Origami cranes behind glass, Hiroshima
entrance?
I love the word 'yes' and a friend loves 'but'.
(Also see entry for 3 September)
Photo: Cornish, Maine
eyes and trophies
She calls this room a trophy room.
I look into the eyes of each animal,
including my own.
Photo: A neighbo(u)r's home, Maine
palm of a world
I saw this palm frond yesterday
on the ground, and couldn't walk past
the world of it without saying hello.
Photo: Frond next to a football pitch, Hong Kong
the lunar now
But now let us cross over
and invest this world where
everything is lunar
Photo: Owhiro Bay, New Zealand
Text: Rainer Maria Rilke, 1909
no fear
Let our first act this morning
be this resolve: I shall not fear
anyone on earth...
I shall not bear ill-will towards anyone.
I shall not submit to injustice
from anyone.
Photo: Classroom, Laos
Text: Mahatmi Gandhi
to reach
A friend of mine begins a holiday.
I wish her, and I wish all of us,
the time and space to reach.
Photo: L in the van she drives, New Zealand
whittemore steps
Maybe thirty years ago, my parents bought a little land beside a lake. Slowly, finally, a house
was made. And hammocks, decks, steps.
This hemlock has lived here all along.Photo: Whittemore Cove, Maine
This hemlock has lived here all along.Photo: Whittemore Cove, Maine
rosy food
Those two black shapes
almost look like keys to press.
Click. Instant rosy dinner.
Photo: A Queenslander house, Australia
night breathing
Trees in the night.
We breathe so softly.
Photo: Tree and gas/petrol station, Statesboro, Georgia, USA
cells of one very living thing
The annual June 4th vigil. Hong Kong.
Our one hundred and fifty thousand tended candles are like cells of one very living thing, in unqualified freedom.
Photo: Flowers near a bomb shelter, Paradise Street, Stuttgart, Germany
solid and silver
Could be a doorknob, a tael, or the top
of a silver head. All solid, sure, us.
Photo: For rope, on a ferry across the Mississippi River, Louisiana
wearing wool
I am wearing a handwoven wool sweater as I type.
This is freshly sheared wool, in other colo(u)rs.
Photo: Wool, Carterton, New Zealand
like mother, like daughter
I put my foot on each carpet.
Photo: A hallway in a hotel, Urumqi
Text: p.s. My mother would do the same thing.
blue is
Blue is everything we cannot touch.
Photo: The concrete structure is a communal area
of an American Indian reservation, New Mexico, USA
Text: Opening of poem 'Seeing blue' in the 'colo(u)r' series
The center of China is mud
All day, dust lands on Hubei
The center of China is mud
He sits by a field of lotus stalks
Where a whole lake disappears to haze
He walks to The Long River in the rain
Where a man curls up under the army pier
He ponders through a museum
Where a dynasty fell
All day, his words finger the air
To see if they can live
And as the day deepens, he begins to sing
Tonight, in his poem, there is more space
Photo: Entrance and parking lot of a new museum, Shandong, China
Text: 'The Center', written for a friend from Wuhan, in Hubei, China
I know these clouds
A man walks into a room, sees
this photograph, and says,
'I know these clouds. It's Paris.'
Photo: Scaffolding nets, rooftop, Centre Pompidou
The image is part of my 'delicate access' series,
exhibited in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore
The image is part of my 'delicate access' series,
exhibited in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore
like a man I want to love
I took this image near a train line in southwest USA,
around midday, as I recall, but the mood reminds me
of late winter in China, and the poem 'North',
which starts, 'milky air / silent plains /
it could be snow / this might be another country....
and the train hums like a man I want to love'.
Yesterday, I boarded a northbound train in New Zealand, disembarking ninety minutes later, in darkness.
I watched the headlights of the train search north.
Farther, farther.
Photo: A backyard in New Mexico Text: Click here to read the whole poem 'North'
but I have since changed the ending to 'and snow has landed'
suburbed cube
Each suburbed cube
holds its life a little differently.
I translate that as an invitation:
Come, see who I am.
Photo: Driveway, North Island, New Zealand
Text: Excerpt from an abandoned poem
the moon is always full
Last night, the moon was full.
As tonight, and every. And yet.
Photo: Fruit in plastic, Los Angeles
taking this big ferry
skyscraper shore
engine drum
your quiet seat
engine drum
rain pats the ocean
engine drum
city big ship lights
engine drum
I want to find you in the cold wind channel
but all the waves are going the other way
I never see who is driving me home
Photo: Jordan Ferry, Hong Kong
Text: 'Taking this Big Ferry' is from my book, 'Delicate Access'
I used to take two ferries to get to my home. Slow, wide, wooden seats, open to ocean wind. The photograph records the first ride, on an old vehicular ferry, which used to run from Jordan District to Central District. The poem is set on the second one, from Central District to my carless island, fifty-minutes away, the engine soothing, the captain always unseen.
mother, mothering
We have two cows, always together. Both mother the other, biologically or socially. Sometimes they groom each other, eyes all dreamy. This is Binny, who bellows every so often for grass or hay, for self, and mother, one or two years older.
Photo: Binny, a steer, Carterton, New Zealand
the river and me
Nile, Rhine, Yangtze, Waingawa, Tongariro, Mississippi, Thames. There are many rivers that stay with me.
And crossing a wide one is like an extra birthday.
And crossing a wide one is like an extra birthday.
Photo: Algiers Ferry crossing the Mississippi River at New Orleans
blue stars
... And stars hang like pretty teenagers
waiting for their chance
Photo: Hydrangea, The Wairarapa, New Zealand
Text: excerpt of my poem 'The Great Rann'
fly, fly
Last night, we looked at fields of stars from our field of grass.
Two satellites were seen. One shooting star. New wind,
Two satellites were seen. One shooting star. New wind,
after hot stillness. And the sprinklers ran overnight
on the neighbouring pastures.
Photo: Sculpture at entrance of a swimming pool, China
I am thinking of Hong Kong
A leader has just died, and some of the people who have respected him are unable to come and mourn him.
His name is Szeto Wah.
I am thinking of him. I am thinking of Hong Kong, a society
I am thinking of him. I am thinking of Hong Kong, a society
I have respected for its courage.
Please, have courage.
Photo: The view from a friend's home, Tsimshatsui, Hong Kong
Photo: The view from a friend's home, Tsimshatsui, Hong Kong
let us count
the search wants to end with a fifty-year-old hand living
on a woman's thigh let us count their loved years
and let us count the dust on a construction man's surrendered shoulders, on his mouth open in shock, his red eyes,
blacker eyelashes: he is dying, dying tonight, while the Wednesday horses cover his newsprint with prayer and fate
win, this moment, win
win, this moment, win
Photo: Construction site, Hong Kong
Text: The end of the poem 'Subway Searching' published in 'Delicate Access'
(Wednesday is a horse racing, and betting, day in Hong Kong)
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