make some art, read some poetry

Jujube

Traveler

青山交叠如画 我的目光泼墨而过,完成一轴山水 — 乃生 《行者》 Hills and mountains fold as in a painting My gaze, pouring over like ink, completes a scroll of landscape — by Nai Sheng

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Jujube

Halloween

The apples are thumping, winter is coming. The lips of the pumpkin soon will be humming. By the caw of the crow on the first of the year, Something will die, something appear. — from Maurice Kilwein Guevara “A Rhyme for Halloween”

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Jujube

Arrival at Santos

Here is a coast; here is a harbor; here, after a meager diet of horizon, is some scenery; impractically shaped and—who knows?—self-pitying mountains, sad and harsh beneath their frivolous greenery, with a little church on top of one. And warehouses, some of them painted a…

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Jujube

Gulf View

Between the striped walls of the canyon Burns a crescent of blue water, arresting, poignant: Jewel-blue, soul of opals and sapphires; Feather-blue, stain of indigo on the peacock’s breast; Flame-blue, color that hovers above the copper-saturated drift- wood in the beach-fire. And the tall white…

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Jujube

Autumn Shade

Awakened by some fear, I watch the sky. Compelled as though by purposes they know, The stars, in the blue distance, still affirm The bond of heaven and earth, the ancient way. This old assurance haunts small creatures, dazed In icy mud, though cold may…

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Jujube

Country Stars

The nearsighted child has taken off her glasses and come downstairs to be kissed goodnight. She blows on a black windowpane until it’s white. Over the apple trees a great bear passes but she puts her own construction on the night. Two cities, a chemical…

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Jujube

Rabbit

Droll and erratic, a jackass rabbit jumps From form to field, or wallows in the sand Grotesquely serious, pop-eyed, waggle-eared, Fit for the prairie, born of it, beloved: A Yankee critter, sinewy, strong, and tough, To laugh at, wonder at – but not to catch.

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Jujube

Reading Myself

Like thousands, I took just pride and more than just, struck matches that brought my blood to a boil; I memorized the tricks to set the river on fire— somehow never wrote something to go back to. Can I suppose I am finished with wax…

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Jujube

Tapestry

It hangs from heaven to earth. There are trees in it, cities, rivers, small pigs and moons. In one corner the snow falling over a charging cavalry, in another women are planting rice. You can also see: a chicken carried off by a fox, a…

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