– after Li Yu*
Last night wind and rain danced frantic till dawn.
Window curtains clapped for their mournful song.
The power went out and the clocks all stopped.
I got up and sat for a while but could not sit for long.
When my daughter was a baby, she loved to sing this song:
Row row row your boat, life’s a butter dream.
How like a storm are our short lives, flooded with forgetting,
Ashes and gold nuggets gushing down gutters in a stream.
I used to think I should spend more time drunk on the road at night
So that I might live, so that I might think I continued to live.
But now the memory of a kid’s misprision
Hits me like a Blakean vision.
I want to go back and row a boat over butter;
I want to go back and do it all over – but better.
*inspired by the poem 'Last Night the Wind and Rain Together Blew (Crows Crying at Night)'
Richard Collins lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, where he directs Stone Nest Zen Dojo. His recent poetry is in Xavier Review, Urthona: Buddhism and the Arts, Littoral (UK), MockingHeart Review, Think, Alien Buddha Zine, Paper Dragon, and Shō Poetry Journal, among others. His books include No Fear Zen (Hohm Press).