Reading other people's books, poetry, novels, stories, philosophy, provides the context for creation. Poems come from somewhere, but not out of thin air.
 

MORIO KITA

1

One should just the same
believe gods still inhabit
woods and fields.
Here’s a spear of grass
some spirit spat on
and a red insect
as new as a wish.

2

To grow we must forget
and what we have forgotten
carry this unknown burden
like a black beetle
heavier and heavier
until
all growing becomes forgetting.

3

An old lady with a stick
walks past me
as though I didn’t exist.
Always thinking of death
I am not sure myself
if I exist in the present.

4

In the valleys
in the mountains
fog of winter
or haze of spring?
Am I looking
at the present
or the past,
waking or dreaming?

5

They seem to wait.
Perhaps these bound volumes
– of what?
have been waiting
throughout eternity
to be reborn.
I am one of them
perpetually holding my breath.

6

What are they muttering
about together
the thunder and the mountain?
My birth, my fate,
the sound of my breath,
my footsteps on bare rock,
my descent to the world.

 

PINDAR

He must’ve tried one day
to translate Pindar but
found that wasn’t his metier.

Words unevenly spaced
     in rows
will better convey
the way things are the way
     they are
and the small things
you want to say.

 

AN OPEN WINDOW

An open window.
I look out on the moment
but the past drifts in.

 

VISITORS

How nice!
Through a hole in the door
the stars look in. (Issa)