Classic Poem

The channel flaps like a tent
now that the whale has crossed.

White water bundling up; paduk stones tumbling, tumbling down.
The sea skylark soars, silver drops its flight,
vigilant half the day
to claw, to scavenge red flesh.

A shell, azalea hued, takes the sun
in a rock crevice thick with seaweed reek,

while a sea swallow on wing slide glides
in a plate-glass sky.
Sea — see right, right down.
Sea
green as bamboo leaves.
Spring.

What does it look like?
Little hills, lines of flower bud lanterns lit?

What does it look like?
Thick thickets of pine and bamboo?

What does it look like?
A crouching tiger
draped in a blanket
spotted yellow and black?

And you, my friend, take some such scene,
a white
smoke like
sea,
and voyage far, far away.