Afterlife

A poem

In previous installments of Every Other Sunday, I have spoken about my affinity with Asian poetry and its varying cultural and ethnic forms.

I’m drawn to the economy of words and simplicity of image, and to the refinement of units of sense — from the sentence all the way down to the syllable. Opportunities for observation and analysis within these minimalist expressions are surprising. From the Japanese Haiku and Tanka, to the Korean Sijo (see Neil Barker’s Meditations on Nature), the Burmese Ya-du, the Chinese Chueh-Chu, and more — possibilities await, even in English approximations.

Though today’s poem does not conform to a specific Asian poetic shape, it is informed by the values that endear me to those traditions, and by the humility of a perspective that doesn’t center the self with respect to states of being.

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The Distant Pass. Gouache on watercolor paper, by Stephen S. Brown.

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Afterlife

Hope’s feeble flicker,
Heart’s ceaseless bicker:

Natter, natter, natter,
I matter.

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