The Middlewesterner

AFTER SOME LINES
FROM CHOU PANG-YEN'S
"TUNE: PRINCE LAN-LING"

We stand
on the bridge

under the moon
listening

to flutes.
The past

is a dream
with tears.

~

AFTER KUAN HAN-CH'ING'S
"TUNE: VAST VIRTUE"

Wind is what wind is
and rain is rain.

No one sleeps.
Sadness is an old shirt

and rain is sorrow.
Cicadas and crickets

have gone quiet.
There's nothing here

now but rain,
beating the leaves.

~

AFTER MA CHIH-YUAN'S
"TUNE: SONG OF CLEAR RIVER"

The moon is low.
The woodcutter rises.

An old fisherman
stops for a visit.

One puts aside
his axe, the other

leaves his boat.
So much depends

on where they sit.

~

AFTER WANG WEI'S
"ANSWER TO VICE-PREFECT CHANG"

In my last years
I want only
quiet. Your business

is none of mine.
I have no plans
but staying home,

listening to wind
fill the pines,
loosening my belt,

and playing
my guitar beneath
the mountain moon.

You ask my advice.
I say: sing like
a fisherman.

~

AFTER WANG CHANG-LING'S
"BORDER SONG"

My horse drinks
crossing the river,

the water cold,
wind like a knife.

The sun is setting
beyond these sands.

Once there were
high-spirited battles

where the Long Wall
begins here. Now

only yellow dust
remains, and --

among some weeds --
naked bones.

~