Japanese Night

i miss the japanese night

with her swollen melancholic moon

the sad grey clouds sporadically lit

by exploding stars

and the hum of rice growing

under the furtive haiku breeze

but i miss the night more in conversation it seems

my eyes betray me but my words do more

than convey the elusive and futile nostalgia

for the past

“you never step in the same river twice.”

i heard.

and yet i’ve walked through that one single

japanese night

for over a thousand lifetimes

and I’m in awe

at always the same place

the same time

and in the same footprints.