Japanese Renga

This is the class poem for Prof. Su's 2008 Senior Poetry Workshop. It is in the form of the Japanese renga: each poet contributes a verse that responds to the previous verse, until a semester-long group poem has been created.

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The Poem

Is it snow or is it rain?

I'm not even sure

the weather wants to decide.

We, in our between season,

will between for a living.

One day, we think we like snow,

Next we just want sun,

But all that comes down is rain.

"日本語 フリ

ー百科事典"

he said, in the other tongue.

Wikipedia

taught us to curse in renga.

And renga taught us something

About tuning our limp tongues.

"What's the world coming to?"

he said, believing

anything a -pedia.

He loosened the ligature,

the already slackened greek.

Suddenly it broke apart,

sailing the Aegean

navigation towards Alpha.

Coursing across a campus

of watery sea,

He saw himself stranded

in a world only ordered

by words and collections of "we."

But when we us we,

we really mean I.

Like when you said men

cannot tread water for long,

you really had one in mind.

Drowning in sea-salt water,

breathing burns the lungs.

Late summer sun sears the earth,

baking soil dry.

I remember winter rains.