Water as Music
A night coo awakens me.
My dreams submerged in that silky summer of Asia.
A Taiko drum plays as a beating heart.
The warm July rain.
Women in beautiful kimonos, I dreamed inside a dream.
We passed that youthful season through Tori Gates.
We bowed under red paper lanterns to draw up Buddhist smoke to our white faces; our round eyes closed; our nostrils pulled narrowly upward.

Sometimes we were hungover to our spiritualist.
Sometimes we pretended to be as spiritual as the holy water we ladled with wooden spoons.
Sometimes we really were touched by those Gods, but too young to carry their lightness with us.

I was submerged in that summer of my youth. The sounds of city trains riding along small towers where people slept and awakened. The sounds of my footsteps on narrow streets as I walked and listened to the nearness of voices through thin walls. A mother talked to a child... I assume. A lover talked angrily...I assume. But I know the sound of holy water as it flowed down pipes and made me feel musical. I know the story of red neon signs as they reflected off Tokyo streets made wet by rain. I know the sensual taste of those rain drops as I dried my lips with my tongue.

The morning dove arrives too early. Hours before its name suggests.
Its cooing awakens me in the night. As if to remind me that I am here.

I arise from my western bed. I drink a single cup of water. I close my round eyes and hope to weave that silky dream once more. But it escapes me as it has, except for this one night, for thirty years.