Old Woman Nature

O
Old Woman Nature
naturally has a bag of bones
tucked away somewhere.
a whole room full of bones!

A scattering of hair and cartilage
bits in the woods.

A fox scat with hair and a tooth in it.
a shellmound
a bone flake in a streambank.

A purring cat, crunching
the mouse head first,
eating on down toward the tail--

The sweet old woman
calmly gathering firewood in the
moon . . .

Don't be shocked,
She's heating you some soup.

VII, '81, Seeing Ichikawa Ennosuke in
"Kurozuka"—"Demoness"— at the Kabuki-za
in Tokyo
460
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