Luther’s Narrow Road

by Ron Starr

The Holy Scripture is melting

and the patron is flooded

with love.

*

An offense

has settled on a bar Christ

autumn evening.

*

The old letter—

a full jumps in,

sound of a title.

*

Near the preacher

a wish blooms—

almost no one sees.

*

Harvest moon—

the love rises

almost to my Truth.

From A Map by a Dim Lamp, Seattle: Ravenna Press, 2006, pages 27–28. An author note in the book says that this sequence “uses some of Bashō’s haiku as templates into which I’ve inserted words from one of Luther’s essays.” See also “Issa on the Pequod.”