[This poem is based upon a wood block print by the great"poet of rain" Hiroshige - 1797-1858]
Foxes waiting under a moonlit tree to become human
have only parcels of land and the domed shadows of trees.
Do you know this as despair?
We all learned that the West was the frontier.
As the sprawl goes, the waters go and as the waters go
so goes the rest.
My mother never knew shamans.
Her friends played cards and Mah Jong
while I talked enough about Jacque Cousteau
they thought he was my friend.
I wish I knew him and the prairie dogs,
and the thunder herds of buffalo.
Will the young know enough to turn things around?
Which ever way it spins, we’ll be passing it down.
If all goes right, the foxes’ paws will sink into the soil
until the dampness wakes them from the woodblock dream;
when they will move out of the shadows into their night.
I wouldn’t wait to be human.
Knowing without knowing, they still have their freedom.
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