Peter Werner: Responding To Bashó

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RESPONDING TO BASHÓ
Matsuo, we're all rather clumsy under this influence of dreams, mildly irritated expressions chewing on the "white of the moonflower." Outside the window darkness ripens, its fragrance an eye for a language. The nearby fields in their encountered silence nod approval, spinning on a circle. Matsuo, old friend, attached to nothing what voice do we have, what song? The future we don't see, quiet in its own sleep, hides in a scarecrow's shirt, the present our currency of angst. The past, with its well-touched shape, lullabied, telling everything, telling nothing - an anointing oil of innocence.
PETER WERNER

RESPONDING TO BASHÓ

Matsuo, we're all rather clumsy
under this influence of dreams,
mildly irritated expressions
chewing on the "white of the moonflower."

Outside the window darkness ripens,
its fragrance an eye for a language.
The nearby fields in their encountered silence
nod approval, spinning on a circle.

Matsuo, old friend, attached to nothing
what voice do we have, what song?
The future we don't see, quiet in its own sleep,
hides in a scarecrow's shirt,

the present our currency of angst.
The past, with its well-touched shape, lullabied,
telling everything, telling nothing -
an anointing oil of innocence.

PETER WERNER

Peter Werner lives in Shankill, Co. Dublin, Eire. He is now of a drinking age when gravity, and not gravitas, is of greater concern to him.

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