by Richard Luftig
Summer Benediction
Now is the moment
when sun and shadow
make the best companions,
when twilight shows off
the beautiful faces
of sunflowers
wild in the fields.
It is the best time
for the tilt and gray
of old, dented drainpipes
that still drip water
from afternoon rain.
Then comes the hour
when blue-spruce
windbreaks allow
last sunlight to play
hide-and-seek
with peeling paint
of houses they were planted
to protect and where their long,
dark, branches allow
starlings and sparrows
to grow quiet
and call it a day.
And for the people
that reside inside
this house,
a prayer:
May the river that runs
this night through your sleep
be so narrow
you can skip across
to meet your best dreams
but so long and winding
that all the bad ones
simply disappear
around the next meander,
never to return.
***
Tokonoma
In Japan, the alcove where flowers are kept
In April, when rains fall,
the camellia sleeps,
not yet a newborn,
its only destiny
to put down roots
in black, humus soil
of a tiny garden,
its only ambition
to make the alcove its home.
In June, sweet shadows
of trees protect this house
while flowers aspire
to be cut and gently
arranged in an ikebana
vase with peony,
and wisteria
in the tokonoma
with a hanging scroll
of long-lived cranes
that promise good
fortune, while in the next room,
tea steeps, so mild
that one can smell the water
and know its source.
But winter comes with quick-
darkened days
all laden with ghosts,
as a woman looks
out the window
with trails of rain
that move down
the glass and remembers
a time when she was young
and would create
flowers with her fingers
amid December’s snow.
Photo by Roberto Sorin on Unsplash
