Thus like swans,
wings wide open in the air,
when spring splashes lakes onto shores,
where in the woods,
wild ducks wheeling in pairs
for a love nest, and snakes
after spring’s first thunders,
slide forth from winter’s fields,
when raccoons lose their minds
mating among maple leaves
in Quaker cemeteries,
and golden smoke rises
above cypress trees, their needles
aquiver with too much pollen,
when songs flow from their lips
and bare feet welcome the embrace of sand,
where, under the tent of a white sheet,
eyes fall on the sea-drenched forehead
of the beloved,
when the church bells rings,
children dash through the lunchroom,
their jackets of tropical fruit and birds of paradise
against the concrete ground of P.S. 19,
where words are at stake,
and thoughts are immobilized,
where life shouts with joy
and being is beauty and love
no longer clings,
where senses quicken their steps
to enter hearts of things…

So simple, these images,
their recognition
is in our nature,
yet too often neglected,
our eyes already elsewhere.
It is beyond the gods
why we hold onto our sorrows
so long, and so stubborn.

~ Wang Ping ~

(of flesh & spirit: poems)