Autumn Grasses Poems Author:Margaret Gibson The inspiration for most of the poems in Autumn Grasses was a daily engagement calendar that features the art of Japan-screens, hanging scrolls, painted silks, wood-block prints. In the dynamic stillness of this new visual field, Margaret Gibson steps away from the merely personal-"No one's home"-to write poems that dip and swoop with the ungua... more »rded ease of birds in flight, verse as fluid and seamless as the movement of day to night, season to season. Trusting the power of unknowing, of imagination, these poems are delicate reminders of English-based forms filled with the spirit of Zen. Autumn Grasses is both elegant and spontaneous, vivid and wise. Gibson's rapt engagement with Japanese art has produced swift insight, detail that dazzles, a voice that can range from the serene to the earthy, always with a commitment of seeing each thing as it is, entering each moment with presence and zest. In fields of lush clover and hay-scent grass
the autumn moon takes refuge
The cricket's song is gold Zeshins's loneliness taught him this Who is coming?
What will come to pass, and pass? Neither bruise nor sweetness nor cool air
not knowing
knows the way And the moon?
Who among us does not wander, and flare
and bow to the ground? Who does not savor, and stand open
if only in secret taking heart in the ripening of the moon?