This is the village of stormclouds.
I have reached it by myself, tugging the bean leaves.
I love these altitudes.
The bean stems sprouted, groves
Of them, a forest of pea-green sticks.
The clouds were loose white scarves,
A bevy of fleecy ducks
Over my mother’s kitchenyard all fall.
The villagers took pitchforks,
Rakes and scythes to haul
Them in. I climbed. My mother shrank into
A calico-skirted beetle
And disappeared. Washed blue,
Now the sky bellies like a circus tent.
How small things grow,
How weighed-down. The firmament
Is a blank blue pond of forgetfulness.
This sun has grown blunt
In its caved-in pumpkin face,
Yolk gold once. All the yellow bean leaves touch,
And clouds are froth, too close
For comfort. My knife sticks
In the green bean crotch. I wait up here to catch
The first kiss of the axe.
