WATER MARGIN

Everything is alive:

Thus the marsh where
Age encroaching

On memories of insouciant capability
On confidence about places one has striven in the world
To occupy as finally stable ground.

The marsh encroaching on that solid possibility

A silent refuge of fervent life and rot

Near the Palladian Villas
Near the place where Confucius is said to have met a boatman
Who taught the sage all he could and no more
Before polling his slender craft back through reeds and mist.

A place where I, a child, was stalking with my father,
Squelching through smelly mud, the broken canes, brackish water, serpents, crabs;

When a huge flash and breaking clatter
As a great Blue Heron startled, rose,
Cruised off in the pale imperial sky;

Scared us both: my father laughed-
His everlasting gift to me.

Everything is alive.