Great Wind Moon

Great Wind Moon

New Moon  June 10, 2021

 

standing in the slipstream

bowing & bending even as we reach skywards

the bamboo in us, the shadows of our rhizomes

the nectar of this wind, moths & birds tilt-furl

casting glances, you would scamper aloft on air too

if you heard love winding your small name

through the center of identity

so insistently that all of you was gone

everywhere in an instant

 

this parable of equanimity—light

of moon, of sun, of love radiating

equally upon everything

is the story of our roots,

how we made sweet

& traded stone

how we salted & exhaled complexity—

the way our giving is boundless

& receiving beginningless

 

how there is the day when there is light

how there is always a moon in phase

how clouds appear & do not diminish

your inmost radiance

which is the world

& is also apparent death

which is the affirmative cosmos tissue

offering awesome unrepeatability forever

 

your pine ocean fire mountain gale

this orange blossom branch wand flight

our unwavering shimmer two-step

 

alive in flux, rejoice!

the breath of now given

blown-out in presence-absence

 

nine bows to David Hinton,
for language inspiration-translation

 

 

Poem by Qayyum Johnson

Painting by Suiko McCall. Mountains & Rivers, 2019. Ink on paper, 50×36″. Available at suiko.art.