Vandals, Early Autumn
Who shattered my window with a stone?
I thought it was the wind, willful
after a dry season, or heaven
making a terse remark, but aiming
my flashlight I watched
the last boy’s crimson back
struggle over the fence
and a tiger’s fierce face sewn
on his denim jacket as a namesake.
How his few years have plundered
the heartwood of reason—why should I
relinquish this house, this poetry
I shaped and reshaped with love
to the wont of stray bamboo?
No use calling the sheriff nor
waking a friend. The angst is mine, mine.
I slouch, I sigh, my eyes
too bleary now to see
early autumn’s dragonflies
skim over the filthy tarn
and into the water oat,
cut water oat.
Marilyn Chin
.
ADVICE
Be the stealth between stones
The abracadabra amongst clones
Be the fighting fish with a fancy tail
The wizard who deifies gnomes
No worry be happy missiles flying
While innocents are dying
You’re pretty nimble for your age
One day a wombat next day a sage
On the way to feeding a despot
You summoned your rage
Most virtuous mother don’t be fooled
They will bomb our shelter scorch our earth
Unwind regroup turn swine into pearl
Be the change you wanna see in the girl
Marilyn Chin
.
That Part in the Music
Once loyal to a cruel master,
the dog moves like a man who
not so long ago weighed a lot less
and is still figuring the difference,
what if anything to make of it.
It doesn’t matter, whatever
tenderness she’s known since;
the dog, I mean. They’re called
hesitation wounds, the marks
left where the hand, having meant
to do harm, started to, then
reconsidered. As if a hand
could reconsider. The dog
wants to trust, you can see it
in her eyes, like that part in the music
where it still sounds like snow
used to. There were orchards, still;
meadows. She’ll never be free.
Carl Phillips
.
