“In 762, Li Po’s wandering ends south of the Yangtze River, at someone else’s house, when he falls into a river and drowns trying to embrace the moon.”
—David Hinton, The Selected Poems of Li Po
The moon is that which does not come and go.
The moon always agrees with water.
She hides, she is my eye moving as the earth turns.
She stands as light, my true mother to my father.
Moon holds, reflects him, where he shines—
in the clouded eyes of crones,
and boys and young girls,
moon changes with the time. Many moons
mirage in puddles during rainstorms.
Moons feed artists and madmen at night.
And my lover wonders why I write
about a Chinese poet with the sight who’s drowned
himself, her hunger a yawn for lunatic stories
lapping on Li Po’s dock.
So, such ripples of night’s white apple convict.
This moment of peace. The green shallows
fill lungs with water and with smiles—
I sleep soundlessly. I am a mere piece of fruit-fall
for beautiful mirrors and rivers of charity,
these—inviting bone-whites, fingers speak
sweetly, every syllable a clarity
to strum a song that I would die for,
to flock with fish
beneath the stream.
Manny Grimaldi is a Kentucky writer and editor at Yearling Poetry Journal with two
books Riding Shotgun with the Mothman and Ex Libris Ioannes Cerva. His third book,
slated for the near future is with Whiskey City Press on the subject of how to royally
fuck up every single relationship you’ve ever had. Without exception. He lives
with two stupid feathery bipeds and the dishes are never done.
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