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Rice Paddies (poem)

By David Sandgrund

Rice Paddies Moonlight

Alone and full, the moon
Floats over the house by the paddies.
Into the night the water reflects the stars above.
The bright silver spills on the water never still.
The image more brilliant than precious silk.
The circle without blemish.
The empty paddies without sound.
And in that silence the rice grows.
The same clear glory extends for a thousand paddies.

The same brilliance for a thousand eyes.

Variation On A Theme

A narrow rim along the rice paddies crunches underfoot to each step
high above the sun beats down
on the fields, dry and yellow

in the summer heat, wide and warm and empty, with the occasional
bush emphasizing the clarity
of an open landscape inviting him
to sit down, back against a hot rock, pleasing, soothing. Staring ahead
into the trembling distance having
no thoughts of tomorrow or yesterday - there's the rock, and the wide,
wide prospect, falling away, falling slowly, slowly away.

—David Sandgrund