Proof
So far no one's confirmed the words that say we're made of earth. Yet there they are in writing. A title on the blackboard — the teacher vanished without warning, his lecture gone undelivered. Tell me, you digger of deep wells, …
Poetry
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Tune: Echoing Heaven’s Everlastingness No.1
Orioles bubble in the shade of green sophora, secluded courtyard empty this spring day noon; painted curtain hangs, golden phoenixes dance, solitary, but the embroidered screen, one stick of incense. Clouds in the azure sky have no fixed home; in vain my dreaming soul comes and goes;…
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Birthplace
What if time came to a stop? Surely the end would be struck dumb. Up on the hill the house where you were born is waiting for you to build it again. How and with what — bricks, wasn't it? The chimney's all you can remember: smoke vanishing in spirals like the string of a…
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Mourning At The Strings Of My Concubine, Miss Yang’s Zither
Her soul has returned to the deep void, her spirit returned to mist: She stayed among mortal men for only eighteen years. Yesterday, I gave away her skirts and sashes to monks, My heart broke: they still were tied to the strings of her lute.
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The Future
If I flash, you'll appear. Backs turned from the present, how can they hope to greet you? You're just like me, predicted for the very place we'll miss each other. Like lightning and thunder— though we come as one, we're revealed as two.
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Recording Events
in times of rebellion, the seasons perversely scurry by; on cloudy days, the sun is quick to set. speechless, I scratch my white head and lean, grief-stricken, on the eastern gate.
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Nine Poems
trans. Portuguese Lisa Sapinkopf 1. Luminous the abolished days When noon bent the columns' shadows And the blue of the sky was drinking up the earth Grown calm in the murmur Of the foliage and the gods. 2. L'Age D'Airain (Rodin) Slowly, slowly, before the light, Laden with shadows and weight, Pulling his body up…
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Tune: Raise The Cup. No. 1
Fragrant grass on the spring bank in Pa-ling, mist thick in the willows, music fills the towers. The tune of a parting song: my heart is shattered to pieces. Today I bid you farewell a myriad times. Red flecked jade plates, gold flecked cups. I must urge you, …
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The Forgotten Commander
trans. Swedish Robert Bly We have many shadows. I was walking home one September night when Y. rose from his grave after forty years and joined me on my walk. He seemed blown clean at first except for his name, but his thoughts swam faster than time could run, and they caught up. I fitted…