2 days (of [eternal] perfection)

"There Will Come Soft Rains"

by, Sara Teasdale

There will come soft rain and the smell of the ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;


And frogs in the pools singing at night,

And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;


Robins will wear their feathery fire

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;


And not one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done.


Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree

If mankind perished utterly;


And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

------

(she) speaks and writes to me of

sunflowers

and cherry blossoms blooming in the present

telling (me) how

the brilliance of sunflowers

is only for 2 days

"so short for so much beauty"

she explains

and how (oft) we forget reality

thinking things like such are somehow

bound to a

forever.

(how is it that i -love- you

without knowing

and without

quotations?)

(another)(she) writes to me of

the devastation and toxic water now around

but how

cherry blossoms have bloomed early in japan

... (recalling the lines of sara teasdale...

"there will come soft rains...")

and how (my) remaking of the words of how and when

spring itself shall slumber on...

sunflowers and how they stand

"like people"

she reminds me

-- so short

-- so brief

this beauty

-- so short

-- so brief

this life

-- so great

-- so immense

this beauty

-- so great

-- so immense

this life.

(how is it that when breathing

i see you

bodiless

and full?)

(her) words and images

play out with the steam that fills my tiled bathroom

thoughts collecting in rivulets that appear and then dissipate on the tiled walls and floor

sunflowers and seeds cascading down my flesh

cherry blossoms running down my hair

and into the drain

all being carried away by

by

by...

air and now

(i tell you of my day

and your ghost responds

with

"yes me too")

(i) want all the slices of my heart

to expand their shreds into

flapping wings

(i know this unfolding

i see it everyday/ noting "everyday" as "매일"

and drifting off into 내일

coming back to "오늘" "지금" the today of now...)

this morning when i awoke

ready to rip up the stalks of dead sunflowers

and curse their stems that knock me in the head

i found peace

in the blossoming of

cherry blossomed breaths...

and opened wide my

wing-ed (shredded) heart

and wrapped your words like

green as green so newborn green tendrils about

my neck and wrists.

so short

so brief

so unearthly

so sublime

so classically "magnificat"

all this

"2 day blossoming"

kind of

love and knowing.

for in the spring

we re-awake

even in the frost of

winter.


kim thompson. friday 1 april '11. seoul. s.korea 14.01