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Oh, woman, woman in thy brightest hour Of conscious worth, of pride, of conscious power Oh, nobly dare to act a Christian’s part, That well befits a lovely woman’s heart! Dare to be good, as thou canst dare be great; Despise the taunts of envy, scorn and hate; Our ‘skins may differ,’ but from thee we claim A sister’s privilege, in a sister’s name. We are thy sisters, Oh, woman, woman in thy brightest hour Of conscious worth, of pride, of conscious power Oh, nobly dare to act a Christian’s part, That well befits a lovely woman’s heart! Ddare to be good, as thou canst dare be great; Despise the taunts of envy, scorn and hate; Our ‘skins may differ,’ but from thee we claim A sister’s privilege, in a sister’s name. We are thy sisters, – God has truly said, That of one blood, the nations he has made. Oh, christian woman, in a christian land, Canst thou unblushing read this great command? Suffer the wrongs which wring our inmost heart To draw one throb of pity on thy part; Our ‘skins may differ,’ but from thee we claim A sister’s privilege, in a sister’s name. Oh, woman! – though upon thy fairer brow The hues of roses and of lilies grow— These soon must wither in their kindred earth, From whence the fair and dark have equal birth. Let a bright halo o’er thy virtues shed A lustre, that shall live when thou art dead; Let coming ages learn to bless they name Upon the altar of immortal fame.

The merest suggestion of mouth and I was ravenous—I filled the house with chocolate, chestnuts, strudel, blood sausage; I bathed in butter. A glimpse of tongue and I was undone, simply a hint of heavy cream and the wax came off in a greasy slab, there were no cauldrons large enough. I imagined his body drawn in sections, flank, ribs, and tenderloin, I rubbed the blade to sparks, my stove walls sweated, windows dripping. Afterwards the house was a shell. My tongue: scorched white. I had to staple my stomach down to the size of a lichee nut. Thimbleful of broth, thimbleful of gruel, the merest suggestion floods my mouth with memory so rich I practically drown.

Pale gold and crumbling with crust mottled dark, almost bronze, pieces of honeycomb lie on a plate. Flecked with the pale paper of hive, their hexagonal cells leak into the deepening pool of amber. On your lips, against palate, tooth and tongue, the viscous sugar squeezes from its chambers, sears sweetness into your throat until you chew pulp and wax from a blue city of bees. Between your teeth is the blown flower and the flower's seed. Passport pages stamped and turning. Death's officious hum. Both the candle and its anther of flame. Your own yellow hunger. Never say you can't take this world into your mouth.

One evening in winter when nothing has been enough, when the days are too short, the nights too long and cheerless, the secret and docile buds of the apple blossoms begin their quick ascent to light. Night after interminable night the sugars pucker and swell into green slips, green silks. And just as you find yourself at the end of winter’s long, cold rope, the blossoms open like pink thimbles and that black dollop of shine called bumblebee stumbles in.

When History turns soldiers into battles, you turn them into grass. Bashō, Sweet, is it honorable? But for these men who died with grunts and clangs in their ears, for their horses with snapped legs, I haven’t got the art to make them into anything. I fold the grass in the shape of a man, very literal, very primitive and leave it on the field and say, “Forgive me valorous men for my ineptitude.” Just then, the little man falls down in the wind and—huh!—there is art. Each “Appleblossom” is a verse translation from the Japanese of a short selection from the notebooks of Chiri, Bashō’s traveling companion during the years between Withered Chestnuts and Travelogue of Weatherbeaten Bones .

Difficult shacks of Kushiro, too far afield, at least theirs are not our roofless griefs even farther in the marshes that are huge buckets of green tea in the rainy season—you glisten as you go, Bashō, wring out your sleeves. Frog keeps its knees in its armpits on plant flotilla and Duck of all the birds is shaped most like a canoe. We were not built for this and anyway, standing smack dab in no-man’s-land you can stop and say,Here is a place made famous in poems. Aren’t you such a place? Each “Appleblossom” is a verse translation from the Japanese of a short selection from the notebooks of Chiri, Bashō’s traveling companion during the years between Withered Chestnuts and Travelogue of Weatherbeaten Bones .

Bashō, with your grass pillow, what underground sounds come into your dreams? Do blue-horned beetles scratch against the starless night sky that lines your head with the starless night skies of their own domed backs? Do centipedes trickle through? Do worms burrow with their snouts, with their bodies that are entirely snouts? Snoozer, I can only ask you this because now you are dead asleep: Do I ever appear as a nightcrawler whispering in your ear? Are the words, “I love you,” as soft as the cough of a good luck cricket? Each “Appleblossom” is a verse translation from the Japanese of a short selection from the notebooks of Chiri, Bashō’s traveling companion during the years between Withered Chestnuts and Travelogue of Weatherbeaten Bones .

I have a need to ventilate, to have my porous body—sockets and holes—open to the bald-faced wind and have my heathen   inner-stuff tweedled like a reed flute and this piffle floats out. But walking on the open road, I know even open roads, to be roads at all, are ruts. With a careless beanfield on either side, off one more time, even you, Mr. Out-in-the-Woods, might as well be stuffed in your hometown bucket. And if these grim beams of trees are truly home, Sweet, as you say they are, then the timberwolves would reclaim you by singing and that would be all. The Moon would reclaim the timberwolves—not a snarl—soft keepsakes asleep in the palm of Her hand. I would reclaim the Moon by picking a white silk chrysanthemum and resting it on the branch beside Her. Who would reclaim me? and say, “Blossom, we are not two. There is no road to or from. You cannot write a love poem. You cannot walk away.” Each “Appleblossom” is a verse translation from the Japanese of a short selection from the notebooks of Chiri, Bashō’s traveling companion during the years between Withered Chestnuts and Travelogue of Weatherbeaten Bones .

You love apples So let’s speak Of apples Say I were to hold you in my hand like an apple round and red And kiss you in bites on the table or Under the tree where you droppedtump And you reached up in cool shadow on the grass And bit back crunch: God I’d laugh knowing dreams Ask like this swallow by swallow

First, are you our sort of a person? Do you wear A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch, A brace or a hook, Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch, Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? Then How can we give you a thing? Stop crying. Open your hand. Empty? Empty. Here is a hand To fill it and willing To bring teacups and roll away headaches And do whatever you tell it. Will you marry it? It is guaranteed To thumb shut your eyes at the end And dissolve of sorrow. We make new stock from the salt. I notice you are stark naked. How about this suit—— Black and stiff, but not a bad fit. Will you marry it? It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof Against fire and bombs through the roof. Believe me, they'll bury you in it. Now your head, excuse me, is empty. I have the ticket for that. Come here, sweetie, out of the closet. Well, what do you think of that? Naked as paper to start But in twenty-five years she'll be silver, In fifty, gold. A living doll, everywhere you look. It can sew, it can cook, It can talk, talk, talk. It works, there is nothing wrong with it. You have a hole, it's a poultice. You have an eye, it's an image. My boy, it's your last resort. Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.