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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 3579 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention From the Observation Deck in a Chinese Garden Gary Blankenship (The second in a series of transformations of Wang Wei’s River Wang poems.) From the Observation Deck in a Chinese Garden Where there are no walls, there are no doors; nor windows to frame the world’s shape. Above, a canopy of narrow yellow leaves; beneath my feet, pits litter a splintered floor. I tap dull, dark keys in muted silence; sometimes starlings answer, sometimes dust. No matter how far away I move the city replies to questions never posed. Move from the precipice. Beyond graffiti and oiled river, through smoke and summer haze, picture a simpler time, when all of this might have been motes in a madman’s mind. In a world without walls, there are no windows to hold the moon, my songs. * Wai-lim Yip’s literal translation of Wang Wei’s Bamboo Grove alone sit dark/secluded bamboo(s) among strum lute and/again long whistle deep forest man not know bright moon come mutual-each other shine* *to keep company by shining/illumination |
