The Lark. The Thrush. The Starling.

( Poems from Issa )

1983 CK Williams


In the next life,
butterfly,
a thousand years from now,

we'll sit like this
again
under the tree

in the dust,
hearing it, this 
great thing.



I sit in my room.

Outside, haze.

The whole world is haze

and I can't figure out
one room.



That the world
is going
to end someday
does not concern
the wren:

it's time to 
build your nest,
you build
your nest.



Listen carefully.

I'm meditating.
The only thing in my mind
right now
is the wind.

No, wait . . . the autumn
wind, that's right,
the autumn wind!



What we are
given:
resignation.

What is taken from us:
resignation.

It is ours that
we can see, do 
see, must see

our own bones 
bleaching
under the warm moon.



In the middle 
of a bite of
grass,
the turtle stops
to listen for,
oh, an
hour, two
hours,
three hours . . .



This is what,
at last, it is
to be
a human being.

Leaving nothing
out, not
one star, one
wren, one tear
out.



That night,
winter,
rain,
the mountains.

No guilt.  No
not-guilt.
Winter,
rain,
mountains.



I know
nothing anymore
of roads.

Winter 
is a road
I know,

but the body 
the beloved 
body,

is it, too,
only a kind
of road?



Did I write this
as I was 
dying?

Did I really 
write
this?

That i wanted to thank
the snow
fallen on my blanket?

Could I 
have written 
this?