Friday, August 8, 2008

The same clear glory

Smog is again blanketing the Chinese capital the day of the Olympic Games opening ceremony, despite it being declared a public holiday, with fewer cars on the roads. The Olympics venues in the centre of the city are barely visible from even a few hundred meters.

Full Moon

Isolate and full, the moon floats over the house by the river
Into the night the cold water rushes away below the gate
The bright gold spilled on the river is never still
The brilliance of my quilt is greater than precious silk
The circle without blemish
The empty mountains without sound
The moon hangs in the vacant, wide constellations
Pine cones drop in the old garden
The senna trees bloom
The same clear glory extends for ten thousand miles

Tu Fu, One Hundred Poems from the Chinese.

No comments:

EARTH DAY: Our Goldilocks Planet

My Nono and Nona emigrated from small villages in the province of Trapani in southwestern Sicily in 1898. My wife and I visited the region b...