LISTENING HAIZI: Under the tree in August, when the moon break your heart

FROM JUNE TO OCTOBER

“Woman of June gathers water, gathers moonlight

Woman of July sells cotton

Woman under the August tree washes her ears

I hear in the opposite window

that the woman of September is engaged

her ring like a wet chick in her pocket

Woman of October blows out

the candles of her wedding.

Black doors fall on the grasslands.”

 

MOON

“Chimney smoke up and down

The moon is a white ape digging a well

The moon is a white ape smiling wanly on the river

How many times blood trickles out of the sky

The white ape flows past a bell tower

The moon is a white ape smiling wanly

The moon breaks its own heart.”

 

OCEAN OVERHEAD

“Primitive mother hides from a farmer

She throws his sickle in the field

drowns her baby in the well

and lets the field lie waste

In the lamplight it seems I’ve met her

She jumps into the ocean

and the ocean hangs over the barn

It seems the snow of my hair

and my father’s is burning.”