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.