Plate
When yellow violets blossomed long ago
Dolphins reared their heads to heaven and sea.
In a sharp-prowed ship wreathed with flowers
Dionysus sails onward, dreaming.
On the decorated plate a boy washed his face,
Crossing the Mediterranean Sea with a gem merchant.
The name of that boy has been forgotten.
The glorious oblivion of morning.
Chestnut Leaves
As string-bean flowers were blossoming,
The evening came.
Both I and the fish slept.
Among the whispering chestnut trees
Maud’s voice sounded.
A nightingale is singing,
The night is waning,
My head turns to shadow of a rose on marble.
Wineglass
The glow of white violets,
A glow circling round a peninsula;
The world of my ring dies into darkness
The shrubbery cup laughs,
Pointed flowers open between the toes,
And white hands reaching out—
Veiled in the light of a pansy—
Embrace a goddess.
Image shifts into image.
Her cheek’s reflected in the glorious spring of a mirror.
Sycamore leaves are reflected in glass.
Primroses in blue-shaven eyebrows.
Tears in a gem.
When day goes out to the sea
And evening enters the shore,
Thy hair turns invisible.
“O rose, thy color is sorrow”
An interesting line. Quite a contrast to Persian/Middle Eastern poetry on roses and nightingales.
Ishmael Zechariah