Places and Times

Misty Gorge on the Yangtze

Before our ship sampans,
behind our ship sampans,
under us brown water
roiling with propeller wakes.

Snake kite and fish kite
wheel on the wind astern.
Green cliffs on either side
rise to dark blue peaks.
Sunset washes blue-gray mists
with watery rose.

Around a bend, ten men tall,
a white Buddha stands on a hill.
Sunset is pink on Buddha's brow.
A thousand broken steps below
a man drops his net in the river.

Sampans precede us.
Sampans follow us.
Twilight shades the gorge
into the starless night sky.
Buddha glimmers in shadows behind us
more ghost than stone.

The dinner gong calls us
to banquet on duck,
chopsticks flashing
amid the chatter
of glittering people.

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Updated last on:  2001/05/26