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Isamu Noguchi’s “Red”

By Joseph Stanton

A tall rectitude of red travertine,
one of Noguchi's monumental zeros,
full of nothing and nothing if not full,
speaks to his Euro mentor, Brancusi,
yet, also, seems as Zen as Zen could be,

wabi as well as sabi,
a statue that resides in a West that is also East,
Honolulu to be exact,
where Japan and America
cross in more ways than one,

a sculpture offering two sides,
an ancient rune whose tune
also declares the modern,
and we can see, too, that the smooth
is backed by the rough hewn,

balances struck and striking,

primitive, yet sophisticate,
powerful, yet simplistic,
rock that is also flesh,
containing crystals that spark light,
a sun setting on a Pacific expanse—

touching upon his mother and his father
as he often did in mind,
seeking, again,
the balance that is the everything
and the nothing at all.