Two
little mynahs
sitting
on a hedge:
One
for sorrow,
Two
for joy.
A
little girl who believed
in
fairy tales,
Blue
lotuses lived
in her
midnight eyes.
Bread
and butter,
Woe
and mirth,
Lightning
and thunder,
Breath
and death.
Life
is measured out in pairs—
A duet
tuned to disaster:
Two
tablespoons, please.
What
do you do with a poem
whose
couplets
refuse
to rhyme?
Would
you tear it up
into a
million flakes
that
snow down upon
your summers and springs?
Would
you torch it alive,
Let
the howls hound you for life?
Would
you incinerate it,
Scatter
the ashes
beneath
your dreams?
Or
would you keep rewriting
till
your blood runs dry
and
you run out of reams?
A
sunrise frozen in a teardrop,
A
bulrush gasping in a heath,
A forlorn
slice of moon in a bedraggled sky,
Some couplets can never rhyme.
