Wabi Sabi

侘寂 

 

To love a thing

whose demise

you can foresee:

a swallow flying

through a windstorm, 

a teapot cracked.

 

A lopsided house,

stone roof off

center, leftmost stilts

sinking. Inside,

a couple

stacking bowls

in downward-sloping

cupboards, sleeping

on an incline. 

 

They are not afraid

the house 

will crumble.

In its pitch,

they hear the chime 

of the stone roof shatter.

 

Brianna Noll recently received her PhD from the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and serves as poetry editor of The Account: A Journal of Poetry, Prose, and Thought, which she helped found. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Kenyon Review Online, Hotel Amerika, Puerto del Sol, and the American Book Review.