—Dedicated to everyone who has lost their freedom in the pursuit of freedom

1.

This page is a quiet pond

The lamp an unmoving sun

My hand traces familiar arcs

into what     I don’t know

A log shifts within the fire

rolls to one side as if in sleep

Within this darkness

an egret stands at the pond’s edge

its hunger a still white flame

burning within the frogs’ silence

It waits for a movement

for a frog to snatch an insect

and in so doing reveal itself

only to be transformed

into white feather

And now by night the frogs’ song

burns like starlight a galaxy

of voices clustered by the pond

dispersing across the meadow

And I wonder how many insects

does it take to become a frog’s song

2.

And why did the frogs go suddenly silent

I step into…