When the last shadow
of the forest vanishes
under the broad wings
of the last river falcon,
I will be alone again.
All the rain forests,
the endangered species and
flora and fauna
bearing testimony found
in hydrocarbons of stone …
going, going, gone.
Thus all our good intentions
are moving along—
their going is our going,
each bound to the other by
shared impermanence.
There’s nothing that’s not Nature.
And yet we are moved
almost to tears by the thought
of the last salmon or whale,
last wolf in the wild,
last California condor.
With a veil of tears
we shroud the dead we’ve tortured,
building great castles of sand.
Here at Kage-an,
we’ve golden and black bamboo,
white blossoming moss,
dark-leafed Japanese maple,
irises just being born—
emptiness in each,
as in this transient world.
Rexroth asked whether
meaning has being. I ask
how tall can the foxglove grow.
How long can the crow
strut his stuff, or the robin
continue to sing
the sun down under the earth?
I want to live a moment
in that song, to die
in that moment afterward,
when daylight has gone,
the world embalmed with silence
until the first marsh frog calls.
How much grief can one
life sustain?—ask the Rabbi
of Auschwitz who died
with his dignity intact,
or ask Chuang Tzu who laughs
loud at the question.
“I am not ashamed,” Merwin
wrote in a poem,
“of the wren’s murders nor the
badger’s dinners on which all
worldly good depends.”
Apologies to the slug
dissolving slowly
in the garden, and to the
mosquito thoughtlessly slapped;
and praise to the rice,
praise to the wine and to songs
that follow after;
and praise for our suffering
which ennobles all our joys.
I have no wisdom
to offer on your birthday,
but here is a song
to celebrate emptiness,
to celebrate years to come.
When I come at last
to be a passing shadow,
I’ll sound like a whale,
and plunge deep into the past.
We are devoid, Hayden says,
of essences, thus
neither young nor old, male nor
female, flesh nor stone.
Happy birthday, my dear one.
What outlasts us is our love.