The Moon, And Hanna Outside, In The Kitchen Doorway, We Decide Poem by Dennis Ryan

Friday morning, September 16,2022 at 6: 29 a.m.; Monday night,
September 26 at 8: 35 p.m.

She's there, outside, waiting,
in the kitchen doorway; we decide.
I open the back kitchen door, and Hanna
comes in. She's been waiting outside
a very long time this morning; the moon
is straight up, overhead; and I crane
my neck to see it. Too light the sky
this morning to sight Venus and Mars.
The regret. I remember the admonition
to Gilgamesh. Yes, once, at another
time, I tried to hold on, hold on to it.
The moon again at 6: 41 a.m. and
Hanna back out on the back deck
again, and down the steps, her
breakfast finished. Time for mine;
but Cucumin first, then Bacoba; this
regimen; isolate them for an hour,
and then it's time to eat. The beginning
of my morning routine, and, still, it's
the semi, the semi singing outside
in the trees we need acknowledge:
its peace and quiet still, and becoming,
becoming satisfied, this good feeling
that hovers over us of all. All.

Yet these reminders—what am I?
Who am I? What am I doing here?
And what's next? More home repair?
More ceiling repair today? These choices.
Ceiling. Sky. "Sora" in Japanese. The name
also. The name of one of Basho's travelling
companions on the narrow road to the deep north.
Oku No Hoso Michi. I've read it. This haibun.
A friend named Satoo, an architexture professor
at the university, had given me a copy
in the original Japanese about one week
before we left the country for good
in April 1985. I look for it on the bookshelf
now for about five minutes without success;
can't find it; only the English translation
by Nobuyuki Yuasa; well-read; well-worn.
(Probably owned for 47 years; the pages
beginning to fall out though still in order.
My copious notes written into the margins,
in Japanese and English. And a sheath
of yellowed, old poems from that time,
"Fishing on Shakotan Peninsula" with
Bando Sensei—my office mate—and his
two sons.) And now the Curcumin, Bacoba
with some store-bought white grapes, and
muscadines picked off local vines down
the street. "Can I bait your hook? "
one of Bando's sons asked me. "Can I
bait yours? " I want to ask right back.
("You'rea foreigner, a ‘gaijin', an outsider,
I think to myself; think what he's thinking.)
"No, leave it to me", I answer back. "I like
to do things for myself. I don't like all
this attention. Find it irritating. Attend.
Attendu. Listen. Pay Attention. (The semi
singing once again.) I'm down to the end,
the end of this piece of paper. The dilemma
once again... Choose Gilgamesh or Enkidu.