Ruddy Kingfisher
You follow the edge of bird’s stringy trills pace by pace;
the sound descending into rank bracken ferns
and datura flowers under leaves of wild papayas.
The tremolos of calls reroll and re-echo
in your ears through humid monsoon bringing rain
as if in Bellinati’s music in deep woodlands
at dawn and dusk as visit moments of Eos and Nyx
who wander the West to the East, try to explore
untrampled places. The goddesses search for their calls.
You can’t yet catch the finicky bird burning, sliding
in mid-air, not a phoenix but a real omnivore
ingesting a striped ant on the ground, a toad
in a jade stream, something of what is scrummy, eerie.
You heard that its petite tail flirts with itself
on a splotchy perch, percussing emptiness.
In the ancient manuscript, you once came across
an image of its red beak like a sheath,
far from your vibrations of its mystic notes.
With aridness in March, bowed moss loses
a sheen, sapless leaves quiver lightly
on branches, each frond is barren for a moment.
In such a day, the wings guide fickle squall
to sleeping jungles with trills. It’s old lore,
today the thirsty woods await dear water
from the sky. Its flap shadow isn’t yet known for you.
Cold dew drops on your forehead. Fresh showers come, fall and fall:
transparent song brings prayers, then rain, then green.
Hideko Sueoka has been working as a translator, living in Tokyo, and was the winner of 2013 Troubadour International Poetry Competition. Her recent poem was published on the online journal Stravaig issue 4
Note: Bellinati — Paulo Bellinati (born in 1950) who is a Brazilian classical guitarist.