Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
For They Are Coming
mono no aware, n_. 1. The beauty (pathos) that emanates from_
all things 2. One’s ability to understand this
The ceremony of insult
kutabare_
go to hell
shinjimae
fuck off and die
our son in fine form
ten years short
of eighteen
now on his toe
tips
red cheeks out
a raging
puffer fish
Year’s end
time
to clean the graves
the newest the problem
the grandfather dead
the boy
unready
for what’s implied
the ease of it
present
to represent
a single stone
the hush of winter morning
_Dentatsulightning in a field
now communication
the word
incandescent
there
among the viburnums in the garden
again
the granite stepping stones he set
mono no aware
meaning
as energy
how everything now carries
a charge of loss
Later
the candles the boy must light
sputter and hiss
hitodama
the death fire
for they are coming
and the wind
brings their message
the echo answers to the voice
the heart distant
practices
practices
its common work
Bern Mulvey is the author, most recently, of the poetry collection Deep Snow Country (Oberlin College Press, 2014), winner of the FIELD Poetry Prize. He has published poems, articles, and essays in English and Japanese, including recent work in The Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, AGNI, Poetry, FIELD, Beloit Poetry Journal, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Poetry East. His first book, The Fat Sheep Everyone Wants (2008), won the 2007 Cleveland State University Poetry Center First Book Prize. He also has published two chapbooks: The Window Tribe (White Eagle Coffee Store Press, 2005) and Character Readings (Copperdome/Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2012). He lives in Iwate, Japan. (updated 10/2017)