Midnight Loon

Arthur Sze

Burglars enter an apartment and ransack（洗劫，遍寻） drawers; 

 finding neither gold nor cash, they flee, 

leaving the laundry and bathroom lights on—

 they have fled themselves. I catch the dipping 

pitch of a motorcycle, iceberg hues in clouds; 

 the gravel courtyard's a midnight garden, 

as in Japan, raked to resemble ocean waves 

 in moonlight, whirlpool（漩涡） eddies, circular ripples— 

and nothing is quite what it appears to be. 

 When I unlatch（拉开插栓） the screen door, a snake 

slides under the weathered decking; I spot 

 the jagged hole edged with glass where a burglar（夜贼，窃贼） 

reached through the window, but no one 

 marks the poplars darker with thunder and rain. 

In moonlight I watch the whirlpool hues 

 of clouds drift over our courtyard, adobe walls, 

and gate, and, though there is no loon（潜鸟，懒人）, 

 a loon calls out over the yard, over the water.