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Giles Havergal, Glasgow stage director,
claims that style is nothing more
than holding your shoulders back.
What a thing, to live in a floating world
whose gestures include
even the binding on
of the morning's Timex, the proper smile
as the teacup fills
from the black iron pot,
dependent on the way
the iris bud unfolds
slowly in its white ovoid vase;
on shisumi, astringency:
no blur allowed,
no melting sweetness;
on karumi: the ordinary,
on yugen: the mystery,
by ushin, with heart,
to cultivate the palate of the spirit,
the loved one's
single cry.
Barry Spacks, novelist, librettist, singer-songwriter, actor, and editor, teaches at UC-Santa Barbara. His poetry has been published in numerous journals. The latest of his nine poetry collections is forthcoming in 2004 from Word-Tech Communications (winner of the 2003 Cherry Grove Collections Prize) and from Michigan State University Press.
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