CHINA ARTS COUNCIL

Poetry

The Eclipse

We climbed the stairs that day;

That day
Of Lunar daylight,
Of veiled sunlight.
The colors filtered
As if pressed
Through a fine mesh screen.

We grew closer to heaven on that tarpaper plateau,
By those parapet mountains.

As the winds circled our innocent gestures,
The clouds wouldn't answer our questions
And there was no one there to hear our thoughts.

The shadows of our hands held sixteen moons.
In our blind gazing, we saw light everywhere;
Even when we closed our eyes.

You urged me to fashion paper portals to tame the light.
But we ended up tumbling the Sun and Moon into a tight embrace
And threw them into an iron pond,
Whose brackish water glistened with their Celestial might.

Sweat flung from their Heavenly bodies,
Like liquid diamonds spilling out;

Their form appearing like the silvery eye,
Of a slippery fish, sliding in a pan.

Laughing aloud we grew to wonder at God's playful game.