II. North and South

 

Full moon and hearts, people crowd close
What will the artist make of a face?
How extravagant, that missing tooth
Beside flowering pink almond.

 

Pink peach, white pear
Follow each other in bloom
Qing Qing’s needles clatter
Variably, in and out of tune

(her curiosity can’t be helped.)

 

Green green the fern
Red red the yarn
Double stitches single hearts
Retain.

 

Walking straight ahead, straight road, curving road
Doubting nothing, boundless and free
With the three hundred sixty-five feathered bird
Among the moving white mists of spring.

 

After lunch – not even a short nap
Off to visit famous Doctor Ho –
For those regretting the day’s shortness or tiring of the year’s sloth
Does he grow the herb devoid of joy or sadness?

 

Snow mountain flowers and a monkey’s heart
               grow old together in a glass jar
Pale yellow orchids and crimson vine twist up to the eaves
Neighbors stop by, share a puff of smoke
May the mountains forever protect full box village.

 

No fishing, no boats on Dian Lake
Emperors had their say; they’re dead –
Yet how fine-looking this old man
Who gently touches the turtle of long life.

 

Swallows dart over black tiles
Earth-brown houses by the rushing stream
The water-buffalo takes his ease, drinks slow and deep
The hills alive with white worms.

 

"War is on", says Mr. Horse
We drive on South … wildflowers
So lovely at first: "invader weeds"
Alongside empty Ho Chi Minh Road.

 

No poems on flowered paper, no gold locks on the double doors
Two pillows embroidered for the guest
Sweet and fresh the night air in Zhu Family Mansion
A cricket singing its heart out, at the edge of heaven.

 

Orion breaks clear, Rigel and Betelgeuse in place
The courtyard fragrant with rain
A lone silhouette bars the window without blinds
In the oval mirror, a single stroke.

 

Where dragons on satin sleep on the South sky-line
Of rosewood the beds, by eaves’ wing the city gate
By Red Mud River we turn, up the double-cloud path
With dreams kept close as pomegranate its seeds.

 

The air, a dance-floor in the late afternoon sun
And you can’t detach your eyes from it
The hills flatten and the shadows grow
Cold jewels, cold jewels.

 

Waiting for the day lilies to open
Now that you know their secret meaning
If only for a day, sorrow-forgotten
Would spread, spring after spring.

 

* * *

March - June, 2003

 

Copyright © Karin Lessing, 2004.

Go to the author's Notes for Yunnan Sketches.