The people's conscience squats
on a worm-eaten pole.
Around the pole dance the bones of three children.
From the young mother's belly it ruptures forth:
the sheep's pulse bleats baa baa.

Hooded in angry mist, the sun goes down:
Steel-gray the clouds roll out across the sea:
Is this a Kingdom? Then give Death the crown,
For here no emperor hath won, save He.

When you wake up at night
And it’s dark and frightening,
Climb out of bed
And turn on the lightening.

THE old
Old winds that blew
When chaos was, what do
They tell the clattered trees that I
Should weep?

Awake for hours and staring at the ceiling
Through the unsettled stillness of the night
He grows possessed of the obsessive feeling
That dawn has come and gone and brought no light.

The moon shines so brightly besides my bed,
As ground frost I mistook its reflection,
To the moon I lifted my eyes ahead,
Hopelessly homesick as I bowed my head,

Startled at the cold stiffness of my pillow,
I see that the window is a sheet of pure white.
Deep in the night, the weight of snow increases
Until I hear bamboo snapping in the darkness.

Nimbus clouds erasing stars above Lamoni.
Jaundiced lights. Silos. Loose dogs. Cows
whose stench infuses the handful of homes,
whose sad voices storm the plains with longing.

I am Night: I bring again
Hope of pleasure, rest from pain:
Thoughts unsaid 'twixt Life and Death
My fruitful silence quickeneth.

Niagara falls
with elegant dignity
divine majesty.