The Lute Player

 
Liu Changqing (709-785)
 
 
As water flows, your lute of seven strings . . .
I hear the wind between the winter pines.
You pull an ancient tune that, though I love,
The players now can hardly play the lines.
 
 

Chinese   彈琴 劉長卿   泠泠七絃上 靜聽松風寒 古調雖自愛 今人多不彈

Pronunciation   Dàn Qín

In Winter
The darkness takes over
Some mornings I wake up in the black
fetal under 3 layers, swaddled
until I uncover an arm or a leg
I’m hit with a stinging chill and remember that it is Winter

My dreams are different during shorter days
In them, my teeth fall out
or the house burns down
my plane leaves the airport because I went to the wrong gate
my party invitations get lost in the mail

My uncertainty is highlighted
these stories, little dramas 
magnified
so I will study them

along the harbor
where green sea goes gray
on an autumn day
 
as it’s turned half winter
now in the sun
and the pairs form
 
of cold light and mannequins
that mouth out with their frozen lips
of something yet to come