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