Photo by Rupert Gadd

Yvonne Blomer's work has recently appeared in CV2, The Fed Anthology and Room of One's Own. She is a traveller, poet, cyclist and day-dreamer who went off to England this summer to start her masters in Creative Writing. Her chap book "In this moment, the world," came out in 2003.

Monday's Poem

© Yvonne Blomer

Cicadas Under My Lawn Chair

The stillness—
soaking into stones
cicada's cry           Basho

Today in the garden I write
in Japanese, an old Basho haiku,
hold it on my tongue,
space out the syllables as if
to say them in silence—
shi zu ka sa ya.
Stillness noted in the quiet of each syllable
how on my tongue sound is pollen falling
from drooping sunflowers.

iwa ni. I become still, stone
while the fine hairs on my cheek brush the fine hairs
moisture in the air rises to wet my lungs. shimiru.

Here, there is nothing as disturbing as a cicada
its every breath an end, but
snap dragons gone to dead-heads
grow wings, lift their papery weight
into the pear tree, fall again,
semi no koe;
my voice, suddenly, gone from me.