new poem: "reading the Dream of the Red Chamber on a cargo ship"
from a rooftop, not a conning tower
reading the Dream of the Red Chamber on a cargo ship
somehow I found that star-light
lost from its original galaxy; came
back to a place never visited, fond
of a nostalgia for times yet to come.
a moon pool, a story of the stone,
high seas rushing around me and
gardens of stars and comets -
for a heart of gold, for a warmness
of night, for a silent dive past the
known
the knowingness, the known-ness.
all things in the field of stars, seas,
the thousand tears, the eye of mind,
solar time and complex navigation
sextants and planet-sights, compasses
marine charts and charm bracelets . . .
the real world, these royal things, tangible
items do their best to inform us, remind us;
the Antikythera mechanism took us before
the flames, beyond our seas - to other times.
somehow I found that star-light
lost from its original galaxy; came
back to a place never visited, fond
of a nostalgia for times yet to come.
I am reading about early rockets, kites designed
in the Edo period; via email I speak with a scientist,
a permanent professor of the Air Force Academy
on landing trajectory information for large craft :
he is, you see, an expert on how things fall to the
ground.
on the bridge, I sit by the glow of the electronic chart,
plotting our movement in open water without a speck
of land anywhere fast in sight. I check the vessel traffic
of which there is none, I feel like a photographer before
open landscape awaiting a deer or rare bird to happen
along
the way so vast, sparse and sound, it is by star-light,
sextant, and mist on anti-rust paint growing cold by
night.