Status Updates From Songs for Tomorrow: Poems 1...

In a thousandfold, ten-thousandfold darkest night
One flower’s bloomed after screaming alone. Close beside it a red flower’s bloomed speechless as iron.

Late one night I seemed not to exist, turning over, forget the sound of rain, I resolved, forget even the sound of rain next year, and the year after.

Tears on my brow too,
The sky falls
No breath of wind,
Not even the least thought of wind
Yet leaves fall.

With the eyes of a blind man seeing for the first time,
As empty heart gives brith to an empty heart.

Tears on my brow too,
The sky falls
No breath of wind,
Not even the least thought of wind
Yet leaves fall.

With the eyes of a blind man seeing for the first time,
As empty heart gives brith to an empty heart.

78

‘Held in a military prison, he never knows if each day will be his last. Buddhist meditation helps sustain him. ... he conceives of an epic cycle of poems to include every person he’s ever known or known of.’