Monday, May 08, 2006

Poem: Kenneth Rexroth


[Photo by Robin Hanson]


Yin and Yang

It is spring once more in the Coast Range
Warm, perfumed, under the Easter moon.
The flowers are back in their places.
The birds are back in their usual trees.
The winter stars set in the ocean.
The summer stars rise from the mountains.
The air is filled with atoms of quicksilver.
Resurrection envelops the earth.
Goemetrical, blazing, deathless,
Animals and men march through heaven,
Pacing their secret ceremony.
The Lion gives the moon to the Virgin.
She stands at the crossroads of heaven,
Holding the full moon in her right hand,
A glittering wheat ear in her left.
The climax of the rite of rebirth
Has ascended from the underworld
Is proclaimed in light from the zenith.
In the underworld the sun swims
Between the fish called Yes and No.


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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rexroth! He's great, isn't he? When I'm blue, I love reading through his translations from Japanese and Chinese poets: so crisp, precise and transparently evocative! He brings many of those same qualities to his own nature (and erotic) poetry ...

Kai in NYC

william harryman said...

I love his translations of Asian verse. Very clean, very precise, as you say.

It had been a while since I read anything by him, and he was in a new anthology I found at the library book sale this weekend.

Felt like a nice spring poem.

Peace,
Bill