Monday Poems: "At the Equinox" -- by Arthur Sze

The tide ebbs and reveals orange and purple sea stars. 

I have no theory of radiance,  

               but after rain evaporates 

off pine needles, the needles glisten

In the courtyard, we spot the rising shell of a moon,

and, at the equinox, bathe in its gleam.

Using all the tides of starlight,

               we find

               vicissitude is our charm.

On the mud flats off Homer, 

I catch the tremor when waves start to slide back in;

and, from Roanoke, you carry         

the leafing jade smoke of willows.

Looping out into the world, we thread 

        and return. The lapping waves 

     

cover an expanse of mussels clustered on rocks; 

and, giving shape to what is unspoken,    

forsythia buds and blooms in our arms.           

*     *     *     *     *

Arthur Sze is the author of eight books of poetry, including The Redshifting Web (1988), Quipu (2005) and The Ginko Light (2009). His work has been honored with an American Book Award and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, among many others. 

Sze was elected Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2012, is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and is the first poet laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico.