Friday, 12 August 2016

Relic Environments Trilogy: Book I, Part 2.xxxv-xxxviii

from Book I, Part 2, Revelations of a Lesser Wife

With the Mourners

Everyone knew her
Everyone knowing the way
The peach ripens

Graceful attitude of worked jade
Willowy ways

The breeze lifting branches
Mythic creature, cavern treasure

The mirror holding her above all others
Surrounded by high officials
Just chatting

Everyone walking now through dull rain
Between lonely horizons
Baffled by hard times she came to
So far from us


Letter to a Friend

What good is city life without companions
Even on back roads we look for friends

Days go by      

My dress of best brocade gone for cash

The mirror silver fogs    
So delicate, I open its case

Across my face my hair falling tangled

Musky incense coils from the dish
Its carved shape seems to change each time I look

It must be spring
All the love notes young men leave
Asking me to hurry
In the alcoves setting portraits of other beauties
But it’s me they wait for

The willow leaning to this new philosophy

The plum’s tight
Tight buds 


To Zian, Across Hanjiang River

The river between us
Poems and longing north and south

The sandbar ducks seem careless

In their element, teals in tangerine groves

A distant singing rising with chimney smoke

The ferry has departed
The empty slipway deep in moonlight
Everyday life so faraway

If you were here, the miles I cross in my mind
Would end    
   

A Name for Other Things

Flower buds breaking
Pink everywhere

By every dwelling, willows
Silver moon foliage

Someone
Preparing themselves for evening
Choosing new clothes

Upstairs, someone else
On her own
Waiting for anyone

Koi glide between lotuses
Between moonrise and sunrise, saying
Disappointment and desire
What does the world know, dreaming as it comes
It goes

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