No Trace
I walk the streets to stray around
As horns hang still, surrounding cars
No people pass, no flowers found
The clouds stay dark, the sun stays far
No light, no sound—a man was hung
These buildings block the burning sun
We take in air with dying lungs
Restored to life against the guns
There is no more, it’s all in vain
Without direction known, unknown
A daydream where it’s all the same
The city cries on buried stones
Forgotten landscapes, desert blooms
A people left by littered gates
Fallen Flowers
This wind will weave
The cry of howling thieves
As calming rain
Unfolds on golden grain
A thousand sheaves
A million fallen leaves
And still these plains
Will fill with bamboo canes
Copyright (c) 2016 by Frank Watson. Loosely translated from Lu Shiheng’s “花落.”
Venice, California
True Learning
Beauty refined in words,
You say, “I know it all,”
And so your mind is blurred—
But if it were, “I am so small,”
The lengths you could be spurred.
You carry coins with scorn,
Enriched like grass in the wind;
But all your jewels have worn
And wasted in fruitless sin,
A beast from the wild born.
Yet true learning dwells inside, well-hidden,
And all is there, with nothing forbidden.
