Cid Corman

thirty-one poems

1/
The 
Call

Life is poetry

and poetry is life--O

awaken--people!


2/

God--how

can I
ever

thank you

enough 
for this 

nothing?


3/

We look to the sky

and the to the earth to see

what there is to know.


4/

Do you really want

to know what lies ahead for

you? Isnt it the

not knowing--not having to--

makes it all possible?


5/
 
Every

any day
amazes. 

Now is what

it takes is 
no more than

this moment. 


6/

You don't have 

to say it


We all know

what we don't. 


7/
RIP

Coming back

only to 

find nothing

nobody

here and there

there you are.


8/

It's funny how

different we
all are--like ants

and elephants

and yet knowing 
we are all all

the same the same. 


9/
No 
Vessel

The water is calm--

the sky clear--light all--and you

swimming alone in 

the midst of an ocean and

not another soul in sight.

---

Cid Corman's most recent book is Nothing/Doing (New Directions, 2000). He is the author of the five-volume book of. He has published more than 150 collections of essays and poems, and has edited and published some of the best writers of our time in his magazine, Origin, a "quarterly for the creative." He lives with his wife, Shizumi, in Kyoto, Japan, where he has lived for many years. contents | previous