The following poem is a featured selection from the Evergreen Review Reader 1967-1972, to be published by Four Walls Eight Windows in the fall of 1998. It originally appeared in Evergreen #78, May 1970.


by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Make it new!
Make it new!
cried the parrot
to the mockingbird
We were born
under the mulberry trees
from which drop
the mynah birds of madness
And fish float
thru the trees
eating the seeds
of the sun

All of one summer
in a branch of water
shaken
by a stream

Silverdollar underwater
like a small stray turtle
lost
at the bottom of things

Passing strange mountains
& dropping pine needles
in an envelope
I send you
some of my bones

Morning mocks its flowers
by becoming
Afternoon

We have our moments
of ecstasy
and then the bird

 

 falls into the absurd

Basho would have liked
a lake like this
back roads to far towns
reflected in it...
Posted 8/25/98
Back Roads to Far Towns After Basho. © Copyright
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Evergreen Review Reader 1967-1973 paperback