Lady's Favor
These are poems about recollection, poems about remembrance, poems about memories, poems about time and things we forget as well as remember...
Lady's Favor
by Michael R. Burch
May
spring
fling
her riotous petals
devil-
may-care
into the air,
ignoring the lethal
nettles
and may
May
cry gleeful-
ly Hooray!
as the abundance
settles,
till a sudden June
swoon
leave us out of tune,
torn,
when the last rose is left
inconsolably bereft,
rudely shorn
of every device but its thorn.
The Effects of Memory
by Michael R. Burch
A black ringlet curls to lie
at the nape of her neck,
glistening with sweat
in the evaporate moonlight...
This is what I remember
now that I cannot forget.
And tonight,
if I have forgotten her name,
I remember...
rigid wire and white lace
half-impressed in her flesh,
our soft cries, like regret
...the enameled white clips
of her bra strap
still inscribe dimpled marks
that my kisses erase...
now that I have forgotten her face.
Remembrance
by Michael R. Burch
Remembrance like a river rises;
the rain of recollection falls;
vague memories, like vines, entangled,
cling to Time's collapsing walls.
The past is like a distant mist,
the future like a far-off haze,
the present half-distinct an hour
before it blurs with unseen days.
Swiftly the years mount
by T'ao Ch'ien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Swiftly the years mount, exceeding remembrance.
Solemn the stillness of this spring morning.
I will clothe myself in my spring attire
then revisit the slopes of the Eastern Hill
where over a mountain stream a mist hovers,
hovers an instant, then scatters.
Scatters with a wind blowing in from the South
as it nuzzles the fields of new corn.
The wildflowers and my love
wilted with the rain
as I idly wondered
where in the past does love remain?
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Fading memories
of summer holidays:
the closet’s last floral skirt...
—Michael R. Burch
Ebb-tide:
everything we stoop to collect
slips through our fingers ...
—Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Outside my window the plums, blossoming,
within their curled buds, contain the spring;
the moon is reflected in the cup-like whorls
of the lovely flowers I gather and twirl.
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Keywords/Tags: recollection, remembrance, remember, memory, memories, spring, flowers, rain, time, tide, tides, ebb-tide
Copyright © Michael Burch | Year Posted 2019
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