A Year Dot
by dg nanouk okpik

Read the automated transcript.

      For Arthur Sze

(Qin) Dim Sum equivalent to: dot, speck heart

Stone piled on stone I finish my meal.
In this early sunrise I see shadows where a cairn of rocks
used to stack in the direction of eastern light.

In late morning, I lit red candles and placed them
next to a three-hinged mirror, as a way of seeing
shadows of shadows

Milkweed grows on the side of the road in ditches,
reminiscent of professor’s soft words, amazing the brilliant,
contemplation and thought pattern, as you learn, slowly.

In my body neuron-zipped words and more words.
My lexicon building from nothing to something good.
Embossed tattoos like small notes on sheet music.

Dots and lines, strands and strings I rest on the note D,
Increase by one half as my orchestra director signals,
dashes and spaces for letters as grace notes in Morse code.

Notes in staccato igniting instrumental waves of burning wood,
a fiery spark over and speck dust played in harmonics,
as a coot hovers over a brook dives in comes back with a fish.

No one would ever know its true beauty and calmness
the setting sun across an arctic lake unless it is witnessed.
As speckled day owls, brants and mergansers float in the sunset.

To learn you must be open, diligent, and willing to be an individual.
11,000 murres with webbed feet land also without any fear of predators.
But still, on the page grow spotted mushrooms and morrels.

Examine the distortion and effects of the warming earth.
The change of the ice age with purpose as the warming earth today.
But I take heart in sun along with the core of a gingko trees light.

Used by permission of the poet.