Two Poems After Li Po
I — Conversation
If you ask me why
I live here on
this lonely hillside
I will smile and say:
The autumn leaves
drift on the moving
water, and
the world of men
is far away.
II — Quiet Night
Moonlight spills
across the bed,
outside the frost
is deepening.
I lie awake and
watch the changing
shadows, thinking
of the lonely earth.
A Letter
after Li Chang-yin
I will not ask you
what we know too well,
the heart has
its own intelligence.
I lower the flame in the lamp
by the snowbound window
and let the moonlight in.
Two thousand miles away
you have said goodbye,
and there is no returning.
After Chu Yuan
With you
I will go down
to the river
and bathe in a quiet pool.
I will dry your hair
in the sun
singing a little,
facing the quiet wind.
With you
I will climb the slope
of evening,
warmed and content,
thinking of home.
________________
John Haines
Of Your Passage, O Summer
Limberlost Press, 2004
