January 13, 2011

Canal Gallery

This poem was donated to the Canal Gallery & Artist Studios at its summer 2010 fundraiser.


Dear Second Canal;

I dream of silver foxes slinking along your bank. I dream
in orange and green,
of ivy unfolding beside your water
and of knotted tree trunks thick with moss.

I am infected with water moving like the drape
of a kimono sleeve–
Like breath against stone–
Slick as the foxes along your bank.

Water, delicate as air.
I reflect this back to you, Second Canal,
as I dream of sneaking
along the banks of your silver.

(from a postcard poem series written home to Holyoke, in Kyoto, Japan)