Canto XXXVIII (after Buson & Issa)

Dan Beachy-Quick

—for Mai Wagner

        Memory's green inch—sunlight's white snow        bright on August pine                needle. Memory's green        inch—half-moon                in morning sky, the pine        tree on the near hill,its tip taller than the tip        of the distant mountain—                by a green inch. Memory's        sky blue through branches                of the pine, the ocean        smells of resin when windblows the ocean        through the pines. Or no,                I'm wrong, it is not        snow, it is the morning                dew in afternoon light, so bright        of the August sun—memory'sgreen wish. The man writing poems        points the way with a poem.                The man who asked the way        has disappeared. The deer bounding                away stops to see what        scared it. Some sound. Spareno arrows, sparrows—        sing. I want a wound.                All my life written down        with a pine needle—                memory's green inch:        I've never been closerto that sound than across        a river.

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photo of Dan Beachy-Quick

Dan Beachy-Quick is a poet, essayist, and translator. His most recent books include Arrows (Tupelo Press) and Stone-Garland (Milkweed Editions), a collection of translations from the ancient Greek. Recently long-listed for the National Book Award in Poetry, his work has been supported by the Monfort, Lannan, and Guggenheim Foundations. He teaches at Colorado State University, where he is a University Distinguished Teaching Scholar.

cover of Copper Nickel 33

Fall 2021

Denver, Colorado

University of Colorado Denver

Editor / Managing Editor
Wayne Miller

Poetry Editors
Brian Barker
Nicky Beer

Copper Nickel—the national literary journal housed at the University of Colorado Denver—was founded by poet Jake Adam York in 2002. When York died in 2012, the journal went on hiatus until its re-launch in 2014.

Work published in Copper Nickel has appeared in the Best American Poetry, Best American Short Stories, and Pushcart Prize anthologies, and contributors to Copper Nickel have received numerous honors for their work.

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