If I am timorous and
hesitant to intrude
on your privacy,
forgive me, for though
every poet in New York
has written a poem to you
it is different here
where one farm does not wish
to violate another
farm’s solitude, but
if after 300 years you
were in this valley
perhaps you would write
about the mouse who
every night travels out
to eat at the dog’s dish.
And I think you would like
the wind stunted spruce
and the way the drip, drip
of the sink gathers
the night around it.
Basho, here is my yellow glass.
I am alone, but happy because
I do not have to be alone.
You understood that, surely?
How one of the pleasures
of silence is finally
returning to your friends.
Even though, no doubt, they thought
you slightly peculiar.
What are the colors of flowers
at night? And Basho, will you
have another glass of rice wine
or whiskey? Basho, may
I show you a poem I’ve just written?
Basho, what are 300 years?
— Ed Ochester
From Unreconstructed: Poems Selected and New by Ed Ochester (Pittsburgh: Autumn House Press, 2007)
from the archive; first posted November 05, 2008
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Author: The Best American Poetry
