Yoko Danno


from Aquamarine


tell it to the stone

beyond the leafless desert
an overblown reptile
reduced to white bones
in a timely sand storm

tightly folded cactus roots
almost scorched to death
unfolding from long sleep
with friendly showers

a lotus unfurling
reveals a yellow eye
a secret, a manuscript
a wisp of memory –

tell it to the stone
in the early hours
between red and white
timeless time in space

careful not to speak
underwater – unfathomable
mysteries long buried
will resurrect and survive




departure

as if urged
by scurrying fallen leaves
birds of passage
fly into thin air

a pair of
fancy sandals
cast off
at the foot
of a staircase

keenly calling
cranes
fade
beyond
snowy peaks

the sky
is a bridge
between there
and here

the depth
only fathomed
through bare branches



Yoko Danno is Japanese, living in Kobe. She writes poetry solely in English. Her poems have appeared in various e-journals, including Otoliths, Pinstripe Fedora, ekleksographia, Shampoo, Praxilla, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Big Bridge, Pirene’s Fountain, and in anthologies such as poem, home: ars poetica, Poetry Kanto, Sunrise from Blue Thunder, 4W, etc. Her books of poems include Epitaph for memories (The Bunny and the Crocodile Press, 2002), The Blue Door, a collaboration with James C. Hopkins (The Word Works, 2006) and trilogy & Hagoromo: A Celestial Robe (The Ikuta Press, 2010). Her translation, Songs and Stories of the Kojiki, was published by Ahadada Books (Toronto/Tokyo, 2008) and the Latvian version of a sleeping tiger dreams of manhattan: poetry, photographs and sound by Danno, Hopkins, and Bernard Stoltz (The Ikuta Press, 2008) was published by Mansards, Latvia, 2012.

URL: http://www.ikutapress.com/danno3.html/
 
 
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