The Chord of 'Sleep'

If the forest is a sea of loden green

His weight is borne afloat there

And he breathes at the shoreline

In the boat of his hut

Beached at the southern edge of the forest

Beached at the northern edge of the plain

Run aground in a harbor

A curled-up hunting dog dozes

Like a cozy, heaving question mark

For the night beyond the stove's warmth

The man lies in the little room

Redolent of a woman's hair

And a child's milky breath

A dream-current slips in winding course

Past the obscured crown of his head

No sooner does the pretty shape

Of a doe glimpsed in daylight drift by

Than he gives pursuit, and onto his shoulders fall

Many golden leaves of autumn

He does not shoot the doe. He sees her

Dancing on a mountain in southwest China

Whereupon he too wants to dance

But his wife is pillowed on his left arm

His child is pillowed on his right arm

With these two coves on either side

It seems that only in spirit

Can he sound a long, haunting whistle

And tread the gliding step of old-time hunters

A forest nocturne that knows no end

Quietly slips past his forehead