MARGARET GIBSON
Summer Birds and Flowers
Unrolling
the coiled scroll
enacts the momentary
sweeping down the midday sky
of small birds
on a draft from the distant
blue ravines
and mountain ridges
into the windy clearing
of summer's
middle distance, so luminous
and near
it's easy to ignore
given the distraction
of hollyhocks
and the stalks of amber iris
that steeply
lean into the emptiness
that borders
the tended garden path
Any fear of what imperils
and impends
is thereby tempered
the tidal and jagged line
of the far mountains
merely an artful
mapping of the birds'
arc of flight
And such a glimmer of gaiety
as they dip and swoop
with unguarded ease
into the inseparable
immensity
my heart stops now
as I think of it
(Shikibu Terutada, Summer Birds and Flowers, one of a pair of hanging
scrolls, 16th Century) ![](../../images/bug_print.gif)
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