LINKS OF RINGS Reading Brenda's White Dress, I come across Chekhov's desire for a special ring with the inscription "Nothing Passes Away" and think of Gyges passing through chasm of earth with his ring of invisibility resonating between black holes and white, dreaming of Kekule's benzene ring— the fire-serpent biting its own tail, Uroborus of beginnings and endings. A black hawk carves Zen circles above the Bayshore Meadows as I watch a lake garden with ripples of wind-raked rings and that scene in Way Down East returns, how Lillian Gish's wedding ring slipped off her finger rolling to her true love's feet how that scene almost replayed itself when she invited me to her wedding at a time when I cared only for rings of 108 Buddha prayer beads— the product of 9 planetary rings and 12 constellations of the Zodiac, how I was drawn to the rings of Saturn— anagram for Sun-art, and Shiva's dance in the cosmic fire-ring of space-time. Once a king who had everything, wanted a ring to remind himself of joy when he's sad, and of sadness when he's joyous. The palace sages pondered for a week, the presented him a gold ring inscribed "And This Too Shall Pass." — Peter Y. Chou     Squaw Valley, 7-10-1990     Poetry Workshop with Brenda Hillman