By Degrees

             I have become Japanese

  in numerous small observances --

               a modest exultation

      upon the discovery of purples,

            Spring's sudden crocus,

              a hush of green moss

   muting a wet wood fence.

             I have become shameful

                     of my curiosity

       after the beauty of strangers.

    I look away as we bend in greeting,

 my smile breaks formally from my face,

    my voice a low deferential murmur.

 

              I have come to meditate

       on pure shapes of lavender air,

             water, mountain;

        on what cannot be observed

         but only suggested.

In this fastness

close against the fogged ink-grey hillside,

absences come to resonate

real as presences,

 

          Leaving everything

                 to be said

   in but seventeen syllables.