The grasslands chase the sun
Only to end at the border of the Xiong-Nu.
The horses tossing their heads snort vapor
Into the frosty air, where it hangs,
Just as my words brushed on paper
Hang on a fluttering scroll.

July 22nd, 2008

I have obeyed my father,
And here I am in a covered wagon
Jolting across the grasslands,
Our tracks far from the commerce of Empire.

Now and then the sooty smell of roasting mutton.
That odor in my hair under a pointed hood
Is my fate.
My cloak will be trimmed in appliqué
Depicting the wolf on the deer’s throat.

What will become of my little brother,
Whom I held in my arms
And smothered with kisses?
Who will sing to him
And who will watch him grow to manhood?
He will be replaced by my own half-breed child,
Who will be on horseback before he can walk,
And by my daughter who will learn the lore of witchcraft.

The sound of the flute issued from the garden pavilion
And at Zhongyuan little lantern boats floated on the stream,
And at Qingming we swept the ancestors’ graves.
No more will I awake with peach blossoms
In the folds of my gown.

Sour mare’s milk for mulberry wine,
And mid-afternoon night for lingering twilights,
Felt tent in deep snow
For my wing of the palace
Where the latest poems are sung to the lute.

As high as the clouds,
Geese with their strong wings
Beat their way south.
Tonight they will rest
In the courtyard of a temple
Where the moon will dapple their backs with silver
Beneath the ruined roof.

July 23rd, 2008

Perhaps I could have been more circumspect,
Or spoken blandly, hinting at nothing.
Perhaps I could have convinced the minister
My plan was really his and applauded his originality.

On night duty, when summoned I ran
In my heavy robes and tinkling headdress,
Bowed in the August presence and kept my counsel.
At night, in retirement, I dismiss the sleepy maid
And brew my own tea, and sing if I please.

In the future the Eastern Capital may be
Under the water of a new shore line,
Or abandoned to the encroaching desert.
Are the hills bitter for being
At the foot of the Kun Lun?
Is the Yangtze among barley and prayer flags bitter
For being a trickle,
While downstream at Nantong it is an inland sea?

July 23rd, 2008

The weaver after her weeks of toil
Only sees the pattern when she steps back
From the loom.
So it is with friends who meet after decades apart.

We laugh, each pointing to the other’s white hair,
And the little lisping boy of memory
Introduces his wife and children.
To the grandchildren’s questions I shake my head
And say I am childless, having brought no one
For them to play with.

Tables are cleared, wine brought in sealed jars.
Servants scurry and return with delicacies of the region.
A chill passes over our mirth to discover
So many youths full of pranks have become ghosts,
Who at the beginning of winter visit our dreams.

I search his son’s face for a portrait of my friend,
The impoverished candidate for the Imperial examinations.
On the porch, sipping cups of wine we sing songs
From another city, another dynasty
And in the ensuing silence the setting sun says
All there is to be said.

July 24th, 2008

It is not necessary to have visions,
But only to attend closely to this world.
My ax bites into the tree and it trembles
With the grief of the mothers
Who have lost sons to fever.

I used to dip my hands into the stream
And drink from my hollowed palms, like an animal.
The water tasted sweet and cold,
And was full of messages about trampling deer
And a sow and her farrow rooting for acorns.
Then I halved a gourd for a scoop
And drank like a human,
But the water was insipid.

The mountain air carries the scent of resin and pine cones,
Yet some evenings I smell the bodies rotting on a battlefield.
At such times I weigh more than Mount Tai.

Every rock and root, every droplet of cloud and every grain of soil
Feels the grief of sentient beings.
Because I know this, men think me wise
And seek me out.
But when they climb to my hermitage
They find the door ajar and the hut empty,
Yet far off they hear the sound of my voice,
Singing as I cut herbs.

July 25th, 2008

Your absence has the taste of bitter melon,
Yet I keep vigil for your arrival
Like a mother at her child’s bedside:
She knows being awake all night will not
Change the course of the fever,
Yet she has no recourse.

The road across the plain grows dark,
And no distant horseman raises a plume of dust.

Everything is kept in readiness —
Your favorite foods, a hot bath, soft robes.
The jars of wine stay sealed
Beside the two cups and the lute.

In a month the passes will be blocked by snow.
As the days shorten the well of hope will freeze over.

The gardener says he has planted two peach-trees,
Side by side, in a place sunny yet sheltered.
As sometimes happens, he says,
The birds favor one tree, build their nests there,
Sing from its boughs, while the other
They avoid, even the bees avoid.
It sheds leaves, withers,
And with tears in his eyes he must chop it down.

July 25th, 2008

The pines above the burning rocks shimmer,
Solid and century old, yet waving like green banners,
And in the valley below, the air just above the river vibrates,
The opposite shore twisting like paper on fire.

Pools of water seem to hover over distant roads,
And a double rainbow arcs between peaks,
Its end points indistinct.

The unseen sun reaches above the horizon
To paint early evening with red and gold,
And the sudden coolness reminds me that
Eleventh-month snow will cover my hut.

In one swish the ax splits the log
Exactly down the middle.
The two halves topple onto the grass.

July 28th, 2008

Rowing toward the shore I hope
The rain will overtake me.
On shore the water runs off
My straw hat onto
My rain cape made of bark,
Streams off my shoulders and back.
I am in no hurry to reach my cottage.

Inside, I light the oven and a lamp.
Water falls in a curtain over the window,
And I hear the puddles splashing under the eaves.

A mountain storm, sudden, rumbling,
But the room is dry, fragrant with soup.
Brushes and ink sticks beside paper,
Partly unrolled, held down by a bar of ironwood.

My home village is just another village,
My family, people whose faces are fading.
Wherever it rains, there is my home.
Raindrops are without guile or envy.
Falling around my thatched hut
They are my friends and guardians.

After the lightning flashes
The air is clean and as sweet as mown hay.

July 29th, 2008

All morning long
The cranes circle downward,
From the cold thin air
Downward gliding
To ripe millet and spikes of sorghum.

At night I hear the whoosh of wings,
Males tall and threatening
Till the call to unison is sounded
And they settle close together.
A red fox, belly low, flits
Between their stick legs,
On his way to the marsh.

At first light they rise up,
Their red hoods redder against the low sun,
And are gone, the air suddenly silent,
The space above the drooping millet empty.
I can feel the field’s sadness,
Still and alone, awaiting the harvest,
Then the first frost.

July 31st, 2008

Beyond the mountain chain:
Other lands, other tribes,
But just as rain freezes into snow and hail,
Melts into lakes and rivers,
Flows into the sea, yet is always water,
So every one of us no matter where walks
Through air dense with ghosts —
They fill our lungs, they push our ships,
They pour into our dreams,
Even the hanged sway in their breath.

The yarrow stalks clatter on the altar,
But what use divination
When the outcome is known?

August 2nd, 2008