Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
(Dennis H. Dutton)
CLOUDS GATHER AND PART:
TANKA
tel-let
2004
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Acknowledgments
Some of these poems have previously appeared in Lynx, raw Nervz Haiku, Paetsagainsthewar.org. Tanka Light, World Haiku Review, and Tangled Hair.
Copyright © 2004 by Karma Tenzing Wangchuk (Dennis H. Dutton)
tel-let
1031 10th St.
Charleston IL 61920-2823
usa
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for H.F. Noyes
Do you remember
that day I walked you home?
Under the arbor,
you offered me a grape
as if it were the sun itself.
--for Mataji Indra Devi
~
The audience laughs
just when it should:
I’m a success
for at least this moment,
playing someone I’m not.
NATURE & THE SEASONS
The boulevard tonight,
made fresh by the passing storm,
is awash with moonlight,
and couples of all ages
are strolling arm in arm.
--for Moussia, in Roma
~
I let the crickets
wander about my room
as they please,
and if they want to make noise—
well, that’s ok by me!
~
Winter comes.
I move from place to place,
house-sitting,
strange keys wearing holes
in the pockets of my jeans.
~
Their boughs twinkling
with fairy lights:
Zelkova trees
along the boulevards
of our sister city.
--from Acapulco, for Sendai, Japan
~
No one visits
my home in the mountains,
but a flicker has made
a nest in the eaves
and keeps me company.
~
Snow on the peaks
of the far mountains
faintly blue . . .
packing my few things
for the winter road.
~
Having been homeless
once myself, I now wonder
how folks on the road
are doing in this first snow
of the holiday season.
~
A solitary pine,
on a small ledge
just below the summit—
old and gnarled, it still
puts up a good fight.
~
LOVE
Secret love—
this town too small
to let it loose,
I make confession
only to the crows.
~
What if I never
tell her that I love her,
and she loves me
but also says nothing—
what then, you fool?.
~
Snow has covered
the bulbs we planted
yesterday.
If only we too could lie
in bed till Spring.
~
The tangled hair
on my pillow
was only a dream,
yet her scent lingered
for a few minutes.
~
Not that I
expected her to call,
and nights alone
are nothing new to me;
but even so . . .
~
I can tolerate
the separation
and her silence,
but this summer moon
is hard to bear.
~
Grasses bend
with the weight of snow,
disappear.
The woman I love
has moved far away.
~
In the letter,
she says that she
admires me—
the woman I love,
who doesn’t love me.
~
Little Brother,
Little Sister:
although our hands
may never touch in public,
this is how I think of us.
~
After years away,
the woman I love
is returning in the Fall,
but fate draws me south
like a lone Sandhill Crane.
~
A glimpse in passing
of an old love this morning. . . .
Tonight the Full Moon
and Venus are conjunct,
and I’m standing here.
Sifnos, Greece
~
"If I weren’t a monk,"
"If she weren’t married" . . .
the road to hell
is paved with such thoughts,
I tell myself.
Sifnos, Greece
~
Married life—
a wife, children, home . . .
that wasn’t for me.
Still, now and then I wonder
how it would have been with her.
Sifnos, Greece
~
Things haven’t
turned out the way
I wanted—
an ocean still between us,
with autumn deepening.
~
Sometimes a color
can make me think of her—
today a pale pink
I found in a shell
at Platy Yialos.
Sifnos, Greece
~
I, who
wanted a woman’s love,
found instead
The Way of Poetry
and its passing fancies.
--after Shiki
~
If only
she would come my way
one more time,
and then before leaving
lift her face to the moon.
~
RELIGIOUS VERSE
I, who
have almost nothing,
want little
beyond freedom from this,
freedom from that.
after Shiki
~
Thinking about it,
what else is there but this—
birth, death,
and something in between
of uncertain duration?
~
Living, dying . . .
either way it’s hard.
To want to be reborn—
what kind of nonsense
is that?
~
Clouds gather
and part, gather and part.
So will we.
Even now, it seems,
we’re gathering, parting.
~
This world of men,
built on so many
false ideas . . .
better to follow the ways
of wind and water.
~
For one who hears
the music of the meek,
a tiny shell
is no less eloquent
than a giant conch.
~
As poisons are washed
to sea by rivers and streams,
so may attachments
to the self and its cravings
be removed by meditation.
~
It’s best to have
no preferences—
what’s good at first
often turns out bad,
and visa-versa.
~
How I’d like
to spend my final days—
in a humble hut
by a mountain stream,
now and then a visitor.
~
How afraid
so many of us are of death—
not wanting
to leave behind the known,
not knowing what’s ahead.
~
How afraid
so many of us are of life—
not wanting
to leave behind the known,
not knowing what’s ahead.
~
This little space
that I now occupy—
what will it be filled with,
I wonder,
when I’m gone?
~
Here in the desert,
spring is over just like that.
Our lives, too, are short.
Who knows whether you and I
will meet in the next world?
~
Seeing a layer
of dust on the surface
of my bathroom mirror,
I trace a finger through it
to make a Happy-Face.
~
The midwinter moon
shines dimly through low clouds.
It’s growing late,
and I have no desire left
for imagining what’s not.
~
It’s not that I
don’t care how things go
in this world of dust,
but that I’m looking for a path
into the green mountains.
~
Like water
poured into water:
no distinction
between self and other
in The Mind of Tao.
~
Sitting on the porch
of my 10-foot-square hut,
thoughts rolling
over the rolling hills
and down to the sea.
~
Released from puja
into star-shine and a waxing
gibbous moon,
we follow our separate paths
to simple huts and solitude.
WAR & PEACE
Not even
under mortar fire
do they flinch;
the Buddhas of Bamiyan
take Refuge in the dust.
~
Surely a leader
will have earned the title
"Evildoer"
who decides to start a war
when peace is possible.
~
Another name
on the killed-in-action list. . . .
How can he sleep—
that man who’s turned
the White House black?
For Lt. Kylan Alexander Jones-Huffman
~
After the rain,
she finds puddles
to jump in—
my child, knowing nothing
of the storms to come
MISCELLANEOUS
A fresh baguette
in his bicycle basket;
he’s pedaling hard
to reach home before
the rain clouds burst.
~
"Misterioso"—
Monk’s long flat fingers
now and then
hitting the wrong keys
just right.
~
To tell the truth,
I think when someone says
"To tell the truth,"
they’re probably about
to tell a whopper.
~
My father loved
to sort nuts and bolts,
brackets, nails . . .
he was seldom at ease
playing with us kids.
~
Nothing to say
to each other,
my mother and I
watch people fight
on "Jerry Springer"
~
Missing a train
that would have had me
home by now,
I watch the full moon
rise over the tracks.
~
The scrim is up,
behind which I’ll play
my character
in monologue, set apart
from the others in the cast.
~
The beautiful shell . . .
thinking it might still
be occupied,
I left it behind
on the beach at Faros.
Sifnos, Greece
~
I, who
chose to live alone,
you who married—
what fools we are,
envying each other!
--after Shiki