Tanabata

source: Yuki Yaginuma

Unpublished. What is worse than a blind date? Being seated uncomfortably close to two people on a blind date, which happened to me some years ago in DC. Tanabata is the 7th day of the 7th month in Japan, when tradition holds that the weaver maid (Orihime boshi, the star Vega ) and the cow herd (Hiko boshi, the star Altair) meet on a bridge of magpies across the milky way. Traditionally children write out wishes on slips of paper and tie them to bamboo branches, which are burned afterwards. It is literally true that Vega (pronounced VEE-ga) will eventually become the North Star, and that it in Western constellations it is part of the harp of Orpheus, the constellation Lyra. The precise quote from Paracelsus (1493 - 1541) is "all things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous."


Tanabata

As night slips the gaps between the stars
so tonight wish true for two, for ours
will fly with them on a bridge of birds:
the spinning maid & cowherd—

Orihime boshi—Vega in Lyra, the harp
of Orpheus—for Hiko boshi say Altair—
one night together once a year—
generous by heaven’s mark

(says Orpheus, sotto voce) – imagine how.
A riddle binds like to unlike – so is
love then a riddle, is a bamboo bough
bent double by scrawled paper slips,

a stolen wish whispering in my pocket.
I’m pinned between a light socket
& two at dinner, horribly their first,
a sour dish & not, one fears, the worst.

I try a little not to overhear
but you know the tables there –
packed in tight the hammered tin ceiling
spreads ordinary secrets brightly peeling

back, to reveal children, drop-offs,
separations – contested tales to knot
as accomplice the eavesdropper bought
with dessert & coffee. The waiter coughs.

Will this night begin their tale,
a work of words made & withheld
to unearth connections embodied, frail,
at once ridiculous & compelled?

Paracelsus himself declared
no difference between poison & cure
only dosage; the well-gnawed bone
of forgiveness at least is not alone.

Ach, second hand passion, sorrow or smoke
all settle to nothing but a stale joke,
& what wisdom comes, comes not this way –
the astronomers promise a coming day:

in turn by immeasurable turn, precession
will raise the spinning maid from charred
harvest wish to ruling northern star,
the seat of power -- an emperor’s accession;

as Orpheus’ lyre is disassembled
so the stars move us, prove us living,
yes some only back & forth, but giving
hope to all parted & partners humbled

in words writ clearly in the clearing sky:
when is a boy not a boy? When he turns into
a store, a man, a bridge all blackbirds knew
would carry two, named wish, or lie.