WebPoems

Carrying a bag of leaves as big as he is,

The gardener staggers up the yellow hill.

Another man, bent over with his wicker backpack,

Points out one leaf he missed; the lord inspects,

Halting his three shaved-head porters on the slope,

Across the steps from the lean-to cook shack,

And the farmers returning from market, backs loaded—

All this bustle up and down, past these huge earthworks,

The palace grounds, the great ditch,

And the puffs of green, the trees wobbling up

Into a pure beige sky, higher than these rooves,

So diagonally adroit, slicing the foreground,

And, on the horizon, the simple shape that all lines point to,

Little Mount Fuji.