Little Mirrors of Despair

It is the end of a beautiful summer—.

It is going to rain and my mother is humming.


The closely cropped leaves of the boxwood reflect an oncoming

moonlight; the breeze carries it across

The koi pond.


Is it really so bad, this garden with its koi fish ponded…its birds

seed-fed…my mother humming—


Her voice so soft…, so far-off-hearted,

Like the sound of the grass lying down.


Couldn’t we be happy

Here?


The rain is just beginning to fall.

The sky gives up its water like an old woman wringing

The life out of her son.


The drops hit the still surface of the koi pond

And shatter it, the ripples and rings sparkling


Like little moonlit

Mirrors of despair.

-Jay Hopler