無我の境地: LOUISE GLÜCK TINHATTERYの極み II

[rhodochrosite]

shitenhoji sequel to this post... this was ridiculously difficult i only made this compilation to assign otis to chitose tbh


SHIRAISHI KURANOSUKE: nostos

Substitution

of the immutable

for the shifting, the evolving.

Substitution of the image

for relentless earth. What

do I know of this place,

the role of the tree for decades

taken by a bonsai, voices

rising from the tennis courts—

Fields. Smell of the tall grass, new cut.

CHITOSE SENRI: otis

I am twenty-three, riding the subways

in pursuit of Chassler, of my lost love, clutching

my own record, because I have to hear

this exact sound no matter where I land, no matter

whose apartment—whose apartments

did I visit that summer? I have no idea

where I’m going, about to leave New York, to live

in paradise, as I have then

no concept of change

//

This is the end, isn’t it?

And you are here with me again, listening with me: the sea

no longer torments me; the self

I wished to be is the self I am.

OSHITARI KENYA: matins

You ought to know

I'm never weeding, on my knees, pulling

clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact

I'm looking for courage, for some evidence

my life will change, though

it takes forever, checking

each clump for the symbolic

leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already

the leaves turning, always the sick trees

going first, the dying turning

brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform

their curfew of music. You want to see my hands?

As empty now as at the first note.

Or was the point always

to continue without a sign?

HITOUJI YUUJI + KONJIKI KOHARU: the white lilies

Hush, beloved. It doesn't matter to me

how many summers I live to return:

this one summer we have entered eternity.

I felt your two hands

bury me to release its splendor.

ZAIZEN HIKARU: celestial music

In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. We're walking

On the same road, except it's winter now;

She's telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:

Look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.

Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees

Like brides leaping to a great height
Then I'm afraid for her; I see her

Caught in a net deliberately cast over the earth—

TOOYAMA KINTARO: the doorway

not in midsummer but the moment before

the first flower forms, the moment

nothing is as yet past—

//

with a child’s fierce confidence of imminent power

preparing to defeat

these weaknesses, to succumb

to nothing, the time directly

prior to flowering, the epoch of mastery