POETRY

NATASHA, THE WHITE DONKEY AND ME Tonight the snow falls endlessly, because I, a poor man, love the beautiful Natasha. I love Natasha, the snow falls endlessly, and I sit alone, drinking rice wine. Drinking rice wine, I think: the night the snow falls endlessly, I would like to ride, with Natasha, upon a white donkey to a remote, mournful …

PARTING BEFORE DAYBREAK First the day, then daybreak, and finally the time for parting. Local time in Beijing is 7 o’clock according to the TV. As a child, I liked to lie in bed, and wait for daybreak, my silver broach stayed in its soft dormant curve. I counted my fingers, exactly ten. Almost daybreak, but no light in the …

A QUARTER TO THREE: THE IDEAL A quarter to three: we need to be even thinner, even that which caresses the nose somewhere stinks, into words. Knocking for bread is clear, chew death is clear, the fog returns, and withdraws the breath is clear. The slow water, roaring through the crack in the asphalt road, is deadly nonsense, it’s world …

IN MY LIFE AS A FOX In my life as a fox I was everything and everything, I was even light to bite, I was the sun of my immaculate face. I did not know my name, and it was just constantly there, where the leg touches the ground. In my life as a fox, I was hungry and the …

PRAYER Our baby’s heart, on the sixteen-week scan, was a fluttering bird, held in cupped hands. I thought of St Kevin, hands opened in prayer, and a bird of the hedgerow nesting there, and how he’d borne it, until the young had flown, and I prayed: this new heart must outlive my own. (Kathleen Jamie)    

OF LOVE The one who says “I Love You”, is a sad fiddler, who has lost his song. Only if Love itself, had a tongue! A thousand, blissful hoopoes, laugh inside of your eyes. Thousands of silent canaries, stay still in my throat. If only Love itself, could have a word! The one who says, “I Love You”, is a …

LIE AND TRUTH There was a mysterious land; its long southern parts extended to the great sea. No one knew much about it. People in the land had a strong belief that they lived in a unique land of peace and wealth. So, ever happy they were and they had a positive habit of smiling. This beautiful myth misled them …

WHEN A BRANCH CROSSES OVER THE WALL When a drooping willow branch crossed over the wall, it may not have been her work alone. If the distant root, whose face she hadn’t seen even once, and the flowers and leaves–who had put their flesh together and washed their hands of each other, hadn’t supported her as one body, the branch …

BETWEEN FRIENDS Beautiful is silent together, even better is to laugh together, under the silk cloth of the sky, down into the moss, bent over a book, laughing loud and friendly between friends, and find out the whiteness of the teeth. If I have succeeded, we remain silent. If I failed, we laugh about, and we do still worse, worse …

LETTER TO A FRIEND Let me tell you about these sheep. In many ways they are like the ocean creatures you know so well: in the benevolence of the creator, they bear children, each has a face of a lad or an old man. These days they are on the hills, a tight flock, a warm flock, with a thin …