Message to
Feiqing
The steps a scatter of cricket sounds
The courtyard a weight of dew
Gathering along the branches
Everything moonlit
Next door a thread of music
From my upstairs window the view is mountains
The distance filled with them
A chill in the air
I am sitting here on plain bamboo
Imagining chords, supernatural
Something to explain everything
Do you remember the story
The wise man, a whole life spent on one letter
A season
Where everything and nothing happens
A Visit to Ezhou
Too many willows
Flowers in odd assortments
Branches choked with cherry blossom
The view from Stone City
Below the walls
Boats sailing slowly
The climb to Zhepai Mountain
The poet Qu Yuan’s grave
Ascending Yuanhuo Peak
Flags on court carriages
Snow’s high, thin note
Of whiteness
Old temples made of poems
A poem for each
New season
New songs for souls crossing
Clear water
Scenes for travellers
Wasting ten thousand poems
Summer in the
Mountains
The gods are my neighbours
Wild thickets blooming up here
My new home a wild seedling too
The courtyard sapling hung with my washing
This clear stream is wine enough
The view enters my window
Disappearing along the passage of the house
Deep along the bamboo trail
Poem scrolls wrapped in silky scarves
I sit in my painted boat, too lazy
To row, singing verses to the moon
The breeze steady on the water
Seems to know the way back
Passing Thoughts
My door in the back lane hidden
No one visits
No lovers
Only hazy perfumed dreams
No seat saved for me at the banquet
The wind carries singing
But from where
Every day at dawn
The army drums breaking my beauty sleep
Only magpies calling in the courtyard
Somewhere, the world is fussed and fêted
I drag my boat up the muddy bank
Even a little bough too far for tying
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