Two lost kites
drift through night tide.
The moon shines
on both of them.
~~~
When our smiles last glanced
pathways where layered in August carpets.
Now the winter snow has fallen
the world blanketed in incandescent stillness.
I see prints in the snow and wonder,
if maybe, they were made by you.
~~~
I could sail star rivers on a raft of clouds
observing all under heaven
and still I would wonder, under all this azure,
will I ever find you?
~~~
Solitary, idle moments
spent staring at the moon.
Now the only times
I meet with you.
~~~
I linger outside of the archway of books
having seen you there before, expecting you there again.
Now empty and, a realization I may never see you again,
my anticipation flutters to wind strewn ridges.
Yet if chance was to forge happenstance
and should return
the moment itself would just unfurl, and unfurl
silent talk with forgotten words.
~~~
Under heavens boundless gaze the
10,000 things are in endless motion
while in radiant azure depths you
wander white cloud paths
as I journey through emerald pines
wrapped in silvered azure mists.
Still, for a moment, I gaze and gaze,
will I ever meet you again?
~~~
A chance meeting in long ago distance.
Now lost on life’s voluminous currents
we drift, two pieces of drift wood, from the same raft
shattered by the chance leap of the vast whale.
Come September, by chance or not we could meet again
just two people, in immaculate idleness, still and empty
in a perfect reasonless silence, gazing skyward
at the sky-raft wanderer sailing the star river.
~~~
Three for a girl.
Seven for a secret never to be told.
You even bewilder the magpies.
In to an orange dust dawn
black and white figments
disappear.
~~~
I follow the tracks in the snow, until
they break towards the silver mists, the immortal climbs.
I peer into those depths and wonder,
will you ever return?
~~~
Vast mountain peaks and flowing rivers
emerald mists cloud the highlands
thick forests of silver azure occupy the low.
Gazing out over this land
I wonder were you could be
the 10,000 things unable to shake the lingering emptiness.
Over such distances even dragon
roars are laden with sorrow.
~~~
All my efforts to find
you fail
so I send forth this paper crane
inscribed with my words
hoping it finds its way
to your bramble gate.
~~~
Poets and poems that inspired this post: http://skyraftwanderer.blogspot.com/2011/12/chinese-poems.html
Pictures, In order of appearance found at the following:
Picture 1: http://arts.cultural-china.com/en/62Arts4678.html
Picture 2: http://www.chineseartpaintings.com/gallery.html
Picture 3: http://www.chineseartpaintings.com/2cj001f.html
Picture 4: http://dustinish.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/national-palace-museum-taipei/getimage-cgi-2/
Anyone who has read I Like (https://skyraft.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/i-like/) knows who these are for. Do with them what you will.
Beautiful! Gorgeous pictures too – I absolutely love the first image. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you the comment.
I do like Chinese landscape paintings. The way the people are small and the landscape just dwarfs them. A real sense of distance and sublimity.
Oh this is beautiful, the absolute longing and yearning. You’ve communicated your feelings so well in these poems my friend.
Um…I think I would have know who they were for without reading I like… She’s become your muse hasn’t she. An unwitting muse, how somewhat complicated. Oh and you know what I think she does sort of have an interest in you. From a woman’s perspective if a gal tends to remember you and what you do it’s because we’re curious about the guy. It’s not scientific, just a gut feeling that I thought I would mention…do with it what you will…
I live in hope. Which is nicer than my usual melancholy. I do appreciate your sentiment. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Writing these was hard. Multiple drafts and then the “burnout” afterwards. Put a lot into them. Nice to see those feelings come out of these poems.
I think it can be absolutely taxing. Emotionally exhausting to create like this. For me, the effort that you put into your work translates in the piece. Funny that you may be in real life introverted, but in your written work you are so expressive, it has that sort of “naked” vulnerability quality. I think that reads well in your work, and creates a “trust-bond” between you and the reader. Well at least from my point of view.
This is beyond brilliant. It merges great, great art with words that burn with yearning and a deep sense of the beautiful. There are so many classic lines and images within this one post that it is difficult to believe. Poetry does not, I am afraid, open many bramble thickets, but if there was justice in the world. . . Still, in the end, life has a habit of hitting you in the stomach, and we humans have a habit of going on and finding days of sunshine amidst the days when the clouds roil dark in the skies. Beautiful, beautiful work.
Yeah, I just got to roll with it I guess. And just hope that stuff works out.
I worked hard on these (reading, drafting, final versions etc), so it is nice to see them receive praise. Hopefully I’ll have more in this vein written soon.
very nice…there is a great building of that longing as you progress through…the opening on the two kites is perfect and you just flow from there…beautiful piece…
Thank you for the comment.
There is a longing and it’s nice to see that it is coming out of these poems. I had some fragments (in addition to the main five) without an intended order, but I think my subconscious may have gone rogue.
I tried to pick out a favorite line/stanza but it was just impossible, every line together was a beautiful weaving of a story all their own and I am in such awe at this piece. This is one of those …”I wish i had written this” moments! BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am saving as a favorite! Bookmarked!!!
http://magicinthebackyard.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/polaroids-of-delilah/
Thank you for the comment.
And thank you for the compliments. Coming from someone as your self they really are humbling. I did conceive the main five to be together. The others just fell into place.
I agree, what a wonderful weave of words. It shows someone deeply in love and such a longing to find her again. Sad but, so beautiful in it’s ache,
Thank you for the comment.
Being honest, I don’t know where she is right now. But I’m living in hope.
nice and deep, filled with honest emotions… the longing can be felt in all of them… my fav is the one with the prints in the snow..
Thank you for the comment.
Again, it’s nice to see the emotions coming out in these pieces. Seem to be far more successful than my previous attempts.
You continue to amaze, astound and resonate, skyraftwanderer…
I have my moments.
These short fragments all seem to have a unity of theme, making a progression which builds, yet subtle and graceful as an inkbrush drawing. (Beautiful illustrations as well.)
Thank you for the comment.
Poems of this style always remind me of Chinese landscape paintings so it’s nice if I (somewhat) replicated that effect.
I love the scale of this – all the images of sky and landscape intertwined with feelings of loss and yearning. “I send forth this paper crane inscribed with my words” is beautiful.
Thank you for the comment.
It was the only way I could write these. I’d like to write poems of longing like, say, Leonard Cohen but I just can’t.