Su Tung P’o: The Hits

 

Without knowing it

The snow had drifted into my room.

It is no greater accomplishment to be

 A rich corpse or a poor one.

Jewels of jade & pearl

Put in the mouths of the illustrious

Feed the robbers of their tombs.

Spring has come again

And the willow cotton is like snow.

I dream of the ancient poet

Who could not distinguish

The peach, the cherry & the apricot.

As for literature, it is its own reward.

Fortunately fools pay little attention to it.

Just a wandering bureaucrat

I have been sent to a spot where

The river enters the sea.

I have heard that here, ten feet deep

In the salt marsh, you can find traces

Of the sand, still cold,

Which bubbled up in Chong Ling Spring

High on the rocky plateau.

 

 

17 June 1995

 

 

[Published in The Dance Of Yellow Lightning Over The Ridge:

Poems 1993-1997. © 1998 by Jim Cohn.]

 

 

APPEARS IN

The Dance Of Yellow Lightning Over The Ridge: Poems 1993-1997
(Writers & Books Publications, 1998)

BUY THE BOOK