David H.W. Grubb
After reading Yoshioka Minoru
The Four Monks
After six days of snow
four monks wait in a field.
The white sun sees the old woman
and her skinny boy as she stops
to listen to them.
The five trees observe as the local poet
spends half an hour in their company.
The river, nearly hidden, senses their
conversation
when three school girls fold their arms and
try not
to giggle.
All day the four monks explain the snow, the
sun, the
five trees and the half hidden river.
This is what monks are for; they know not only
the questions but the answers also.
And again that night, wrapped in their own
tight winds,
they find it very hard to sleep. The question
torments them.
Who will explain their deaths?
Who will open the earth for them?
Page(s) 20
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