Tuesday, February 1, 2011

heir to all

What I spill in a dream
runs under my door,
ahead of my arrival
and the year's wide round,

to meet me in the color of hills
at dawn, or else collected
in a flower's name
I trace with my finger
in a book. Proving

only this: Listening is the ground
below my sleep,
where decision is born, and

whoever's heard the title
autumn knows him by
is heir to all those
unfurnished rooms inside the roses.
From Book of My Nights, by Li-Young Lee