Dweller in hollow places, hills and rocks,
Daughter of Silence and old Solitude,
Tip-toe she stands within her cave or wood,
Her only life the noises that she mocks.

I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.

Eaten alive by
lice and fleas -- now the horse
beside my pillow pees

Dour river
Jaded with monotony of lights
Diving off mast heads….
Lights mad with creating in a river… turning its sullen back…
Heave up, river…
Vomit back into the darkness your spawn of light….
The night will gut what you give her.

How baseless is the mightiest earthly pride,
The diamond is but charcoal purified,
The lordliest pearl that decks a monarch’s breast
Is but an insect’s sepulchre at best.

Earth hard to my heels
bear me up like a child
standing on its mother's belly.
I am a surprised guest to the air

Sour plums at lunch left my teeth feeling all feathery.
Banana trees cast green across gauze window-screens.
A long day. I Wake from a noon nap empty of thought,
all idleness, watch kids catch falling willow blossoms.

Early summer rain--
houses facing the river,
two of them.


Translated by Robert Hass

a scorching sun ~
trickles down the sky
an eagle's cry

Herr Zinklar drog over salten Sø,"
Ja, det kan man kalde en Vise,
Den bruser, som Bølgen om Sjølunds Ø,
Den ene, kan Skjalden prise!