Lights numb my foreign tongue:
ecstatic sound.
风, wind, embodies 景
image: a landscape
difficult to read.
Slow January
coldly unfurls another year
over the narrow trail, birds
flying north, geese cry
profound & the boulevard
with its low drumming
of ten thousands engines
crawling on the overheated
carcass of earth---antecedents
of birth and death,
languages of royal pilgrims
treading the sunken ground,
poignant songs
like smoke rising beyond the misty shore.
My vowels are prolonged
or turned depending on whose sorrow
keeps me awake.
Too much has escape.
from daily crossing.
I lie with one ear open
to the murmurs of wind,
the persuasive sound
of silence. Dis-
remembering those
who are gone, but still
reachable as we drink
from the same fountain
or listen to the same song.
I don’t know where
spirit lives. Old shoes
grow bigger each winter.
Like all lights, words
are late,
more dead than the dead---
风 takes the fallen leaves home.
A landscape
difficult to read:
Towers torn down.
Towers erected.
Rooster on the threshold
snow bound.