Japanese aesthetic: an appreciation for what is broken or thread bare or unfinished.

Most lives are unfinished,

we sit by a window, where

puddles fill with repetition,

and struggle to end a day,

not with the same stare tasking sadness,

but with vision of some new thing.

We hear red leaves settle under the dying tree,

if we could stop thinking and winnow out the motors,

hear a cricket spill  its  night call,

with no end in sight to  the evening’s voice.

There is retreat and shade,

the alley cat knows to seek

the same  spot–underneath a dwelling—

In the sea of broken lives,

lies a threadbare promise.

LAURIE KUNTZ is an award-winning poet and film producer. She taught creative writing and poetry in Japan, Thailand and the Philippines. Many of her poetic themes are a result of her working with Southeast Asian refugees for over a decade after the Vietnam War years. She has published one poetry collection (Somewhere in the Telling, Mellen Press) and two chapbooks (Simple Gestures, Texas Review Press and Women at the Onsen, Blue Light Press), as well as an ESL reader (The New Arrival, Books 1 & 2, Prentice Hall Publishers). Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her chapbook, Simple Gestures, won the Texas Review Poetry Chapbook  Contest. She was editor in chief of Blue Muse Magazine and a guest editor of Hunger Mountain Magazine.  She has produced documentaries on the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Law, and currently is producing a documentary on the peace process and reintegration of guerrilla soldiers in Colombia. She is the executive  producer of an Emmy winning short narrative film, Posthumous.