If I could only sleep
Like Meng Haoran,
A rock
Long past dawn,
But something wakes me
3 or 4 a.m.
“Like a crow,
“Like a storm,
“Like the great crashing
“Bells of the leaves.”
Out the window
Xmas lights,
Ho ho ho,
Torture prisons,
Unseasonable heat.
Mountains, rivers:
Symbols of what?
Old fool:
Still so stupid
After 55 years
To feel things.
“Like a crow,
“Like a storm,
“Like the great crashing
“Bells of the leaves.”
Just another day
Amid the headlines:
Open the gifts!
X many died
At Y many checkpoints.
Wai-Lim Yip has
White-haired Du Fu say:
A letter from home is worth thousands of gold pieces.
When you call
I say, “Yes!”
And count the angels
Dancing on a pin.
And the ghosts.
Later,
K rolls onto my side,
Sobs for an hour.
Old fools,
Both of us:
To feel things.