(after Rihaku and Pound)
Five days
beyond my nineteenth birthday,
you brought me to this island.
In tumbling stars
we lay,
skins upon the sand.
I gave what I could –
you flew from me
like a frightened bird.
This fall
the crickets stilled their song;
in the brown yard, the Boules de Neige
were weary and gray.
The grass grew long
around the cottage walls;
I had not the feeling
to cut it,
nor my own hair.
Today
the snow came;
it lies thick upon
my sad heart.
Hear me, my love:
Our child stirs
within my womb.
Each day until the buds burst,
I will wait by the ferry gate.
If by then you do not come,
do not come at all.