Ryōkan Teaches Me

written By

that if I open the window
and hold out my hand

it would feel moonlight
delicate and invisibly soft

and if I spread my fingers
the moon’s light would soften

even more as it gently falls
the rest of the way down

to the snow-covered earth
and simply whiten the snow

even more than it actually is
and be welcomed

almost as if it had never gone away
to look for a home away from home

Author

  • Robert Harlow resides in upstate NY. He is the author of Places Near and Far (Louisiana Literature, 2018). His poems appear in Poetry Northwest, RHINO, Cottonwood, The Midwest Quarterly, and elsewhere. Or so he has been led to believe.

    Harlow

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