(A cento)
The word gets around
but my hands, beside yours in the sunlight, can’t refrain—
Your silver smile, your jackpot laugh,
bright gifts—
If you dream of a poet, someone will cry.
If you dream of a flower, it is nothing.
My pencil, Venus Velvet No. 2,
It was the end of a terrible winter and, when I awoke, I had sky in my mouth.
[LAG-other-response date=”04 16 2013″ url=” https://www.vianegativa.us/2013/04/basho-remix-2/” title=”Via Negativa: Basho Remix (2)”]
~ Sources: Basho (via Dave Bonta); Leslie Marmon Silko, from a July 28 1979 letter to James Wright; Deryn Rees-Jones, “From the Songs of Elizabeth So;” Carol Ann Duffy, from “Treasure;” Eliot Weinberger, from An Elemental Thing; Gjertrud Schnackenberg, from “Venus Velvet No. 2;” Cecilia Woloch, from “Postcard from Akhmatova’s Bed”