Facing Night: Poem in Sky Island Journal

 

A poem from the manuscript, Absence: Presence, 

was recently published in  

Sky Island Journal, Fall 2020 Issue.

 

Tu Fu/Du Fu

 

Absence: Presence is a collection of poems influenced by Classical Chinese poetry of the Tang Era (especially the work of Tu Fu, Li Po, and Han Shan ).

 

Li Po/Li Bai

 

I wrote the poem a couple of years ago, in October of 2018, after reading “Facing Night” by Tu Fu, in a translation by David Hinton.

  

Facing Night

 

In farmlands outside a lone city, our

River village sits among headlong waters

Deep mountains hurry brief winter light

Here. Tall trees calming bottomless wind,

 

Cranes glide in to misty shallows. Sharing

Our thatch roof, hens settle in. Tonight,

Lamplight scattered across koto and books.

All night long, I can see through my death.

 

Koto: The Japanese name for a plucked zither. The Chinese name is ‘guzheng,’ meaning ‘ancient zither.’

 

After reading the poem, I wandered outside: Mars above, rattle of dead stalks, stars…

The poem can be found at Sky Island Journal here.

 

BBC documentary on Du Fu

 

 

 

The No One Poems

I’ve been trying to write a poem in praise of the protestors, but I haven’t come up with anything that seems to work.

As I was contemplating how to go about writing the poem, I thought about all the people, the activists, that I’ve known over the last thirty years, who have been doing the same work, day after day, year after year – and found a deeper love and appreciation for how they have held to the truth, and never wavered, across the decades. 

Maybe that’s what I want to include in the poem and have not quite found a way to do it – interweave the beauty and courage of the current protestors with those who paved the way. Keep it simple. But not simplistic...

Instead, here's a link to a series of poems that appeared this spring in  

Leaping Clear 

(a magazine of Art, Literature & Contemplation, 

edited by Alyson lie, Margery Cantor & Carolyn Dille)

Li Po

These poems were written in 2018, as part of a manuscript influenced by Classical Chinese poetry. I've come to call this series “The No One Poems.” Each poem is in slight imitation of the sometimes joking, sometimes bitter voice of the Tang Dynasty poet Li Po (or Li Bai), along with the work of the cave hermit poet Han Shan, all starring a character called “No One.”

You can find the new crop of “No One” poems here.
 

*******************

Below is the beginning of one of the poems:

No One Watches the Men Talk Behind Podiums

No One watches the press conference
over and over. Words endlessly

tumble out of official mouths. Insects
sucked dry. No One wonders how

these men managed to open holes
in the world with such shriveled words.

Holes that let the dead back in. All
the dead who believe they are owed

a second, a third, a fourth chance.
Endless repetitions: I'll get it right

this time. Victory will be my sun-
chalice, a golden wall. No One runs

outside, watches the hummingbird
moths in the lavender. Their wing-

chants, counterpoint to the sound
of bees. Tongues arc toward purple

blossoms. For a few seconds,
the tongues fill the holes torn in

the earth, the sky, in so many hands,
faces, torsos…

You can finish reading the poem here 
at Leaping Clear. 

Other "No One Poems" can be found at:

No One's at the Cash Register 

(in The American Journal of Poetry)

 

No One 

(in a previous issue of Leaping Clear)