A bee staggers out of the peony

(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.

 

In response to 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”

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