Compass Rose. Arthur Sze

      

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      Thank you. We hope you enjoy these poems.

       This e-book edition was created through a special grant provided by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Copper Canyon Press would like to thank Constellation Digital Services for their partnership in making this e-book possible.

       for Carol

       for Micah and Sarah

      Contents

        Cover

       Title Page

        Note to Reader

        Dedication

      1  Black kites

      2  After a New Moon

      3  Sticking out

      4  The Curvature of Earth

      5  Begging near

      6  Compass Rose Arctic Circle Fault Lines Glimmer Train Orchid Hour The Curtain 2’33” Comet Hyakutake Morning Antlers Compass Rose Red Breath

      7  In relief

      8  Available Light

      9  The Infinity Pool

      10  Strike-Slip

      11  She wrings

      12  The Immediacy of Heat

      13  At the Equinox

      14  Returning to Northern New Mexico after a Trip to Asia

      15  Qiviut

      16  Backlit

      17  An aura reader

      18  Confetti

      19  Spectral Hues

      20  Windows and Mirrors

      21  Midnight Loon

      22  Point-Blank

      23  The Radius of Touch

      24  A cobra rises

      25  The Unfolding Center

        Acknowledgments

        Notes

        About the Author

        Books by Arthur Sze

        Copyright

        Special Thanks

Black kites with outstretched wings circle overhead —

After a New Moon

      Each evening you gaze in the southwest sky

      as a crescent extends in argentine light.

      When the moon was new, your mind was

      desireless, but now both wax to the world.

      While your neighbor’s field is cleared,

      your corner plot is strewn with desiccated

      sunflower stalks. You scrutinize the bare

      apricot limbs that have never set fruit,

      the wisteria that has never blossomed,

      and wince, hearing how, at New Year’s,

      teens bashed in a door and clubbed strangers.

      Near a pond, someone kicks a dog out

      of a pickup. Each second, a river edged

      with ice shifts course. Last summer’s

      exposed tractor tire is nearly buried

      under silt. An owl lifts from a poplar,

      while the moon, no, the human mind

      moves from brightest bright to darkest dark.

Sticking out of yellow-tongued flames on a ghat, a left foot —

      Near a stopped bus, one kid performs acrobatics while another drums —

The Curvature of Earth

      Red beans in a flat basket catch sunlight —

      we enter a village built in the shape

      of an ox, stride up an arched bridge

      over white lilies; along houses, water,

      coursing in alleyways, connects ponds.

      Kiwis hang from branches by a moon

      door. We step into a two-story hall

      with a light well and sandalwood panels:

      in a closet off the mahjong room

      is a bed for clandestine encounters.

      A cassia tree shades a courtyard

      corner; phoenix-tail bamboos line

      the horse-head walls. The branching

      of memory resembles these interconnected

      waterways: a chrysanthemum odor

      permeates the air, but I can’t locate it.

      Soldiers fire mortars at enemy bunkers,

      while