Poet on a Mountain Top from Classic Chinese Paintings
I Send Out This Paper BoatAugust now, and three years —
four? — since I’ve touched
your arm, heard that river-
bed voice. I grow old,my hair lengthens and thins
at once, gray at the temples.
My body declines in every
sense. Our lives so farapart, this sea too wide
for even dreams to bridge.
Both our beaches littered
with shards, lovers leftand leaving, broken shells
of expectations and demands.
There are wars between us;
storm and flood and deadlydrought; a long, desolate
peace. Our lives thin down
to this: one or two tenacious
friends, deep-rooted againsttime, against wind and loneliness.
A few sparse lines in a Chinese
painting: one tree clings to the cliff,
branches stunted and bent; sea-battered, salt-worn, but still
it holds. It holds.
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