POND SONG 3.60

Opening the untouchable enclosure of shut-in selving is like a death, though sometimes the death is unnoticed, like a gentle wooing, and imperceptibly one comes alive again. G&B 223

I pass the public bench__neat stack of clothes under it

the bench itself empty__the mud’s hot glare and rapid

rippling of the neap tide__a flapping egret spins

in stenciling sun (Matisse)__and that only begins

to make sense as wen__Tu Fu mind reflects

the meandering of the flow__there are no subtexts