A farmer digging a well in central China uncovered the site where 6000 terra-cotta soldiers were buried by the first Chin emperor. . . . [guided tour] How we would love to take the things of this world with us to the next: a wife, a well-thumbed book, something in gold, perhaps, to mimic sunlight….
In the almost empty cafe I light a cigarette, taking pleasure in blue hieroglyphics the smoke makes. This is the first free time I've had to myself in months. In Egypt the beautiful, leathery flesh of a mummy aches for the sun's nonpartisan appraisal. New arrival, at the next table, an old man—in a voice…
. . . the bird on a branch painted by some Sung academician is a symbol to express what we might call the bird-on-bough aspect of eternity. The Arts of China, Sullivan On a branch somewhere in eternity a bird sits, each feather one silhouette of the brush laid flat on the page, each leaf…
I'm your private dancer, a dancer for money. . . — from a Tina Turner song When Celina arrived the floor was on fire. You could tell by her hips and her mouth she was built for the tango. Glasses of clear amber danced the tables on the tango rhythm. You could tell this place…
On nights when the moon seems impenetrable — a locked porthole to space; when the householder bars his windows and doors, and his dog lies until dawn, one jeweled eye open; when the maiden sleeps with her rosy knees sealed tightly together, on such nights the safecracker sets to work. Axe . . . Chisel…
1. Blue, Arrival She arrives but isn't met because he lost the time of her arrival. The blue air of late autumn carries her to the gate, where she turns over her first-class ticket stub to the mute at the ticket window. When he looks up he sees the cobalt stone balancing her middle finger,…
On the prairie's edge they buried the president, and you can eat your lunch near his clean, shiny tomb. Still, too many people can't pay their rent. The grasslands beyond once covered with tents. He was born here: for free you can see his house, its tiny rooms. On the prairie's edge they buried…
in memory of Stephen Blos Although we always come this way I never noticed before that the poplars growing along the ravine shine pink in the light of a winter dawn. What am I going to say in my letter to Sarah — a widow at thirty-one, alone in the violence of her grief, sleepless,…
Bend your back to it, sir: for it will snow all night. How gently they sink — white spiders, multi-bladed bleak things, these first, into the nearly mirror of your shovel's surface. It snows, lightly — wide columns of black between each flake but it will snow all night, and thicker. So, you start now…
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