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Twelve o'clock. Along the reaches of the street Held in a lunar synthesis, Whispering lunar incantations Dissolve the floors of memory And all its clear relations, Its divisions and precisions, Every street lamp that I pass Beats like a fatalistic drum, And through the spaces of the dark Midnight shakes the memory As a madman shakes a dead geranium. Half-past one, The street lamp sputtered, The street lamp muttered, The street lamp said, "Regard that woman Who hesitates towards you in the light of the door Which opens on her like a grin. You see the border of her dress Is torn and stained with sand, And you see the corner of her eye Twists like a crooked pin." The memory throws up high and dry A crowd of twisted things; A twisted branch upon the beach Eaten smooth, and polished As if the world gave up The secret of its skeleton, Stiff and white. A broken spring in a factory yard, Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left Hard and curled and ready to snap. Half-past two, The street lamp said, "Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter, Slips out its tongue And devours a morsel of rancid butter." So the hand of a child, automatic, Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay. I could see nothing behind that child's eye. I have seen eyes in the street Trying to peer through lighted shutters, And a crab one afternoon in a pool, An old crab with barnacles on his back, Gripped the end of a stick which I held him. Half-past three, The lamp sputtered, The lamp muttered in the dark. The lamp hummed: "Regard the moon, La lune ne garde aucune rancune, She winks a feeble eye, She smiles into corners. She smoothes the hair of the grass. The moon has lost her memory. A washed-out smallpox cracks her face, Her hand twists a paper rose, That smells of dust and old Cologne, She is alone With all the old nocturnal smells That cross and cross across her brain." The reminiscence comes Of sunless dry geraniums And dust in crevices, Smells of chestnuts in the streets, And female smells in shuttered rooms, And cigarettes in corridors And cocktail smells in bars. The lamp said, "Four o'clock, Here is the number on the door. Memory! You have the key, The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair, Mount. The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall, Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life." The last twist of the knife.

Tonight I light the candles of my eyes in the lee And swing down this branch full of red leaves. Yellow moon, skull and spine of the hare, Arrow me to town on the neck of the air. I hear the undertaker make love in the heather; The candy maker, poor fellow, is under the weather. Skunk, moose, raccoon, they go to the doors in threes With a torch in their hands or pleas: "O, please . . ." Baruch Spinoza and the butcher are drunk: One is the tail and one is the trunk Of a beast who dances in circles for beer And doesn't think twice to learn how to steer. Our clock is blind, our clock is dumb. Its hands are broken, its fingers numb. No time for the martyr of our fair town Who wasn't a witch because she could drown. Now the dogs of the cemetery are starting to bark At the vision of her, bobbing up through the dark. When she opens her mouth to gasp for air, A moth flies out and lands in her hair. The apples are thumping, winter is coming. The lips of the pumpkin soon will be humming. By the caw of the crow on the first of the year, Something will die, something appear.

A town so flat a grave's a hill, A dusk the color of beer. A row of schooldesks shadows fill, A row of houses near. A courthouse spreading to its lawn, A bank clock's lingering heat. A gleam of storefronts not quite gone, A courthouse in the street. A different element, almost, A dry creek brimming black. A light to lure the darkness close, A light to keep it back. A time so still a heart's a sound, A moon the color of skin. A pumpjack bowing to the ground, Again, again, again.

The ribs and terrors in the whale, Arched over me a dismal gloom, While all God’s sun-lit waves rolled by, And left me deepening down to doom. I saw the opening maw of hell, With endless pains and sorrows there; Which none but they that feel can tell— Oh, I was plunging to despair. In black distress, I called my God, When I could scarce believe him mine, He bowed his ear to my complaints— No more the whale did me confine. With speed he flew to my relief, As on a radiant dolphin borne; Awful, yet bright, as lightening shone The face of my Deliverer God. My song for ever shall record That terrible, that joyful hour; I give the glory to my God, His all the mercy and the power.

After Ko Un In the village it’s the season of dried grass, the smell of   burned dirt, gaslight glinting through blackened stubble. I walk home across the rice-fields, brushing insects away from my face, remembering old Namdong who was buried yesterday. What does death ask of us? I must change whatever it was I was when the old man was alive. I keep looking at the rice-fields, glinting in the dark. Blasted by mildew, more withered than last year — how much work and love it must have taken. In autumn, no matter how bad the harvest, how big the debts — no thought of   leaving here, no thought of rest. As life goes on, time isn’t the largest thing to think of, it’s the smallest. Growing, going in drought or monsoon, mold or blight — what is the rice if  not alive? With Sunja Kim Kwock

Miles of them grow in my carry-on and travel with me across continents but the customs officers are suspicious they eye my old suitcase and ask me to open it Pickles? they ask sniffing deeply prodding a packet or two say Sure ma’am you’ve got no jeera or chilies? (now they’ve learned the Hindi word for cumin so the new trick is to joke with us) And one time I saw three burly officers question an elderly couple disheveled as I was from 20-plus hours of travel from Kolkata and as disoriented (and yes as usual all the usual “foreign” suspects are sent along to “Agriculture”) and they poked around in their overstuffed bags (where some rice fields appeared but they couldn’t see them of course) and one officer said Duck? Bombay Duck? It’s a fish?? Dried fish your son wanted? Sorry no fish allowed or birds

all the rain came down at once like a dropped bag of aquarium pebbles. too much for the street to swallow: all gravel & grit. i feel the saltwater rushing in my mouth as i hit the shore — sand becoming rice. the pot on the stove — put on the lid. we read the back of the bag — bring the water to a boil — it protests in the clouds. rainwater peeling open car windows to fill the floor — make mobile your lakes & the herons will come — don’t feed the birds rice. my favorite summer storms are the ones that come too fast. they remind me so much of myself: gathering their gray hair in a bouquet to beat against the highway. i think of the times the thunder would toss geodes at the street until they cracked open, about dad telling my brother & i to go upstairs & shut the windows before the storm snuck inside. the car prayed until it drove on water — ocean barreling toward us like a great big whale: blueness open & mouth full of salt. you ask if we should stir the rice & the water hisses & spits. we often forget about the ghosts who kneel in pots of water. there’s always a wooden spoon. i keep mine in the glove box. taking it out, i park the car with the four-ways on. other monsters slosh past. we get out on the side of the road. kneeling i plunge the spoon into the bank: chicken broth & rice. rain warming our bodies until there’s no mistaking us from the stove. i burn my feet getting back into the car. our flesh turns chicken-white & tender. somewhere in all of this i managed to drive across the whole unknown ocean — the one without a name that shows up only when it downpours. makes tides that eat radar & sailors. picks rice grains from her teeth. the other side is not land, but soft rice steaming & ready. our legs sink in. take a spoonful of me before i drive home a second time. the sun emerging like a quartered bell pepper. i’m thinking of lying in a rain puddle with you & falling apart into a palm full of cooked rice.

The man I pulled tonight carried a load of books. When I felt him watching me uphill, I grimaced. He gave me lunar cakes the size of two camel humps. When I answered him, I smiled to his face. He wore the moonlight in his specs. Pant seams clean as the embroidery work of his book covers. One cannot grow rich without a bit of cleverness. Should I have shown him the secret of my deft touch? The Circling Moon, the Graceful Swan? How East Wind beats West Wind if other two winds say so? Snow falls on cedars.

Who I am’s child’s play, a cry in a kindergarten; though I pun on Latin, my Yorkshire kin’s laik, a whole lexical rainbow unweaving in no code, no Mason’s Mahabone nor Horseman’s Word — but I’m caltrops at night to the bare feet of adults inspiring their language to such colors as I am, Kulla, Mondrian plastic pixelating Mies blocks; the Ephesian Artemis in each cubist bust; the Song of Amergin by a Turing machine: name me or you’ll be thicker than any brick.

Ride a cockhorse to Banbury Cross, To see a fine lady upon a white horse; Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, She shall have music wherever she goes.