Thursday, October 4, 2018

Staying the Night at a Mountain Temple with Li Bai

Staying the Night at a Mountain Temple, by Li Bai
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High tower high hundred feet
Hand can pluck stars
Not dare high voice speak
Fear startle heaven on person
The high tower is a hundred feet tall,
From here one's hand could pluck the stars.
I do not dare to speak in a loud voice,
I fear to disturb the people in heaven.





Staying the Night at a Mountain Temple with Li Bai

High tower high hundred feet

On the bridge of Is predicates will
join our names. Onto bridge of silk bow
or the hunter’s bow Li bai is leaning.
(Isn’t that closer to what ‘meaning’ means?)
A bridge with no stairs and stands
straight like a man. And when we were
these ribbons on the wind
we meant by our sentences
their flutter among unformed genders.

Hand can pluck stars

An open window on the little house
to let the big house look in.

Hand stirs the heart of things.
with names of friends,

addressed to them
the world is made of words.
I have heard the music of the stars 
longing to pluck me up again.





Not dare high voice speak

I dare not the high voice speak,

but through syntax the indirect lustral gleam
of messengers, whose orders knot
the communicative backside, the refracted
predicates and observances
indulged by the broad and deadly face.

Green shrieks of crows
paint within the brown of evening.
I lean on the moons growing quietly across the lawn.


Fear startle heaven on person

Remember yourself to me
as you lean against the sky.

Hand plucks person,
and a star is startled
in the other’s midst. 

Fear is an omen of the presence 
of the heavenly self. A name like crows, 

rising and comprising heaven.


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