(1) Near Amersfoort
Wherever we walked –
wasn’t it a bridge?
Didn’t we see gates, tall
stones opening,
rising before us?
Water risen to wave,
streets risen in widening sun,
goldening stones
opening into the wind –
together we saw.
There we were carried,
there we were borne
over. Gates: we saw them,
saw them here and risen,
saw them go before us
over the stone, the flow.
(1) Cherry Blossom, Plum Blossom
for Fou Wei-sin
Like roofs of human houses
patterning sky,
writing over emptiness,
suddenly the trees
branch out flowering where nothing was.
from over the ocean – how do they know
to warm with us here?
How in the dusk of winter show
bright petals, bring
fingers of light through?
You point, want me to see
the ways: how cherry
rising grows and plum across, both
reaching. Yes, but they won’t:
only we reach.
When you drive me to
the station I will reach you
a hand and be gone:
gone as the cold from the trees.
--Lloyd Haft (from Formosa