I'm going to read--
now these are curiously in the context of Japan,
but they are love poems.
And I'm going to read three love poems from a good [INAUDIBLE]
"Poems for Robin."
The first is called "Siwashing it out once in Siuslaw
State Park."
Now, the noun "siwash" means--
it used to be a coastal Indian of the Pacific northwest,
and it was a corruption of the French "sauvage."
Now the verb "to siwash" means to sleep out all night
without a sleeping bag or bag or blankets tending a small fire
so you don't get too cold.
So "Siwashing it out once in Siuslaw State Park."
I slept under rhododendron.
All night, blossoms fell.
Shivering on a sheet of cardboard,
feet stuck in my back, hands deep in my pockets,
barely able to sleep.
I remembered when we were in school sleeping together
in a big, warm bed.
We were the youngest lovers.
When we broke up, we were still 19.
Now our friends are married, you teach school back east.
I don't mind living this way, green fields,
the long, blue beach.
But sometimes, sleeping in the open,
I think back to when I had you.
That's based on a curious classical Chinese meter
Five beats to the line.
Two beats
and then a caesura, then three beats.
The second one is called "A Spring Night In Shokoku-ji."
Eight years ago this May, we walked
on the cherry blossoms at night in an orchard in Oregon.
All that I wanted then is forgotten now, but you.
Here in the night in a garden of the old capital,
I feel the trembling ghost of Yugao.
I remember your cool body naked under a summer cotton dress.