Panels of the Four Seasons, by Robert Dorsett

Flowers and Plants of the Four Seasons, by Yamaguchi Soken (Japan) Edo period, late 18th-early 19th century

 
              Panels of the Four Seasons
    
               You lower tiers of wisteria, 
                    steep patrina in  
               trays of green, daub  
          grass before a brushwood door.
               When the Oxherd seeks  
 
               the Weaver, magpies form 
                    a bridge across    
               panels of gold sky. Quail 
          upon pampas, cuckoo among 
               hills, echo. Yellow in the     
 
               gingko: October passes a         
                    mountain. Loquat  
               candle-lit along the Kamo.  
           You find, in frost the fragrance  
               of chrysanthemum, a  
 
               memory of Autumn. A      
                    fog, or bank of        
              cherry flowers. In empty 
           December forests, the last logs
                of moonlight burn.
 
Robert Dorsett

Robert Dorsett is a physician working in Berkeley. His latest book of translations, Ai Qing Selected Poems, was published by Random House/Penguin in 11/21.