Of all the old times
I'll take Chinese poetry.
A man could loll under a hemlock tree then
and muse
and nature be
as wood to carpenters
a grouse ambling by,
a sparrow hopping,
nothing was of greater consequence. . .
such sweetness flowing
as through a membrane through his limbs
the universe turned
into a poet's enclave
the great society
where simplicity is character
and character
the common tongue, the representative of man.

In those corrupt, bitter times
the most obscure clerk
could attain clarity
from these poems
and his nature
and change into
a superior man
of exquisite modesty
by simply looking
at a heron crossing a stream.