Homage to Ryōkan

by Robert Sund

A little grey feather from somewhere

floated down onto my writing paper.

How frail!

      an inch long

      arched on its slim bone body

      more like a mist than anything else

      rolling over the white paper,

             soon gone

             a light wind claims it.

My only

visitor today.

From Poems from Ish River Country, Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004, page 181.