AS I STEP OVER A PUDDLE AT THE END OF WINTER,
I THINK OF AN ANCIENT CHINESE GOVERNOR
And how can I, born in evil days
And fresh from failure, ask a kindness of Fate?
-- Written A.D. 819
Po Chu-i, balding old politician,
What's the use?
I think of you,
Uneasily entering the gorges of the Yang-Tze,
When you were being towed up the rapids
Toward some political job or other
In the city of Chungshou.
You made it, I guess,
By dark.
But it is 1960, it is almost spring again,
And the tall rocks of Minneapolis
Build me my own black twilight
Of bamboo ropes and waters.
Where is Yuan Chen,
the friend you loved?
Where is the sea, that once solved the whole loneliness
Of the Midwest?Where is Minneapolis? I can see nothing
But the great terrible oak tree darkening with winter.
Did you find the city
of isolated men
beyond mountains?
Or have you been holding the end of a frayed rope
For a thousand years?
James Wright
I THINK OF AN ANCIENT CHINESE GOVERNOR
And how can I, born in evil daysAnd fresh from failure, ask a kindness of Fate?
-- Written A.D. 819
Po Chu-i, balding old politician,
What's the use?
I think of you,
Uneasily entering the gorges of the Yang-Tze,
When you were being towed up the rapidsToward some political job or other
In the city of Chungshou.
By dark.
But it is 1960, it is almost spring again,And the tall rocks of Minneapolis
Build me my own black twilight
Of bamboo ropes and waters.
Where is Yuan Chen,the friend you loved?
Where is the sea, that once solved the whole loneliness
Of the Midwest?Where is Minneapolis? I can see nothing
But the great terrible oak tree darkening with winter.
Did you find the city
of isolated men
beyond mountains?
Or have you been holding the end of a frayed rope
For a thousand years?
James Wright
so inspirenig post!!! yhank you ))))
ReplyDeletethank you vitalik! is there snow where you are?
ReplyDeleteThere are quite a few images here I could happily steal. I take it #1 is Stoitzner.
ReplyDeletethanks, charles, but you can't steal them if i give them away. my brain is becomming worse and worse about even remembering where i got something sometimes, so i've tried to credit anyone it's likely to be in the sidebar (including you).
ReplyDeleteand yes it's stoitzner. it's always been labled as such the image itself, but somehow i forgot to put up its lable (and a few others) right at first....
let me clarify one thing -- when i know i directly got a particular image from a fellow blogger i just try to not use it, or to credit it. but i don't seem to be able to remember anything anymore.
ReplyDeleteLovely, as usual. Many Thanks,
ReplyDeletethank you, debra.
ReplyDelete