Glyphs

The middle of nowhere.
               A single contrail dissipates.
The measured silence is song.


                                   : :


The saint holds up
               His own flayed skin 
As if a cloak, as if a gift.


                                   : :


Four of the six folding screens
               Painted a transparent gray wash 
Are the emptiness between peaks.


                                   : :


Like an explicit story,
               The footpath up to the headland 
Begins and ends.


                                   : :


The horizon, after all,
               Is not a line
But the arc of a continuous circle.


                                   : :


A gorse fire.
               The ground ungrazed 
But not gone wild.


                                   : :


The tide delivers up
               A drowned boy’s body 
And is willing to reclaim it.


                                   : :


Shifting, impermanent,
               Uncluttered by soot: 
A blue blur of incense.


                                   : :


The task is over
               Before it is begun.
Perfection: a book without words.


                                   : :


Here and there,
               Memory adheres: low clouds 
Displace the habitations.


                                   : :


How does one emulate
               The divine with only
A body to embody the disembodied?


                                   : :


After thunder in the canyon:
               A measured song of silence 
To pinpoint the middle of nowhere.

Read more from Issue 18.1.