My Garden's Path

Shih Ching Poem

Traits of Classical Chinese poetry:

(1) Usually, the Chinese poem is fairly simple on the surface

(2) Usually the poem deals with either agrarian imagery, courtship and marriage, or dynastic concerns.

(3) Each poem is usually composed of lines of four syllables,

(4) The poetic principle organizing the poem is often one of contrast. Often Chinese poetry will juxtapose a natural scene with a social or personal situation. The reader of the poem sees the similarity in the natural description and the human condition, and comes to a new awareness of each by this contrast.

My Garden's Path

East Winds follow the monsoon's path,
a garden's home once firm, has shifted
to coral pools, powdered, chafing;empty
crevice without bush.

My palms foretold of this event, my
fingers like vines around the trunk of
a cherry tree, my joints twisted, grey;
old man drags a canvas in the falling rain.

The world washes over me, everyone
looks away, the light shines somewhere
else. Why begin the painting now?
Lifting hand thinks of waterlilies.

Motion, colors bleeding, illustrate my
point; pick the brush hairs from the paint.
I cling to shadow, feel stone under strokes.
Who will wait for me in my garden?