Tyler Burns · 7 pieces
Dynamic Poetry
Poems that will not hold still. Each one alters itself a word or a letter at a time, so by the time you reach the bottom the top has changed, and you have to read it again.
The Old Pond · Matsuo Bashō, tr. Harry Behn
Genesis · on Bashō’s pond
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The Old Pond, Creation
The pond runs back to the formless deep and is made again in six days, each ending on the old refrain. On the seventh, a frog. Read again from the top.
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The Old Pond, the Fall
An old Eden pond, one word from Bashō’s. A tree, a snake, a bite, and two people walking east.
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The Old Pond, Cain and Abel
Two brothers, two fires, one field. The story of Cain and Abel, told without ever leaving Bashō’s haiku. Read again from the top.
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The Old Pond, the Flood
The pond rises until it takes the world. Then a dove, a leaf, a bow in the cloud, and the only promise in the series that answers “again.”
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The Old Pond, Babel
One speech, a plain, bricks, a tower whose top may reach unto heaven. Then the words scatter, and what is left is Bashō’s pond in five tongues at once.