Old Woman Nature

Old Woman Nature

naturally has a bag of bones

                tucked away somewhere.

                a whole room full of bones!

A scattering of hair and cartilage

               bits in the woods.

A fox scat with hair and a tooth in it.

               a shellmound

                      a bone flake in a streambank.

A purring cat, crunching

               the mouse head first,

                       eating on down toward the tail--

The sweet old woman

               calmly gathering firewood in the

               moon . . .

Don't be shocked,

She's heating you some soup.

                            VII, '81, Seeing Ichikawa Ennosuke in

                      "Kurozuka"—"Demoness"— at the Kabuki-za

                                                       in Tokyo