Читать книгу Thresholds and Other Poems - Matt Hohner - Страница 12

To A Poet of the Three Gorges

It is evening: cold wind, late November,

east side of Baltimore’s harbor. In the display

window of an upscale home furnishings

boutique, an old wooden ox cart wheel,

circa 19th century China, mounted

on an iron stand: prized salvage

from the flooded towns and valleys where

the Yangtze carved deep into millennia,

cascading through culture and time.

I think of Du Fu, turning his ear

to the gibbons’ howls reverberating

deep in the three gorges, his skiff

moored along the shore, verses coming

like lanterns at night, borne by the dark currents,

lifeblood of heritage, surging past his bow.

Downstream, a new power flows from the river,

its megawatt hum echoing off concrete ramparts.

The old voices, now whispers, drown in waters

rising to light cities of millions where, once,

men in simple wooden boats and carts

delivered the news one verse at a time.