The ancient stone stands tall and steep,
As surging waters dance below.
Hazy gold bleeds into mist,
where turquoise flourishes in salt-washed glow.
–jujube
Watching the Blue Sea
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Category Archives: Poetry Illustrated
Mountain Dialogue
问余何意栖碧山，笑而不答心自闲。
桃花流水窅然去，别有天地非人间。
You ask me why I make my home amid these green mountains;
I smile and make no reply, for my heart is free of care.
As peach blossoms flow downstream and are gone into the unknown,
I have a world apart that is not among men.
李白 Li Bai (701-762)
The Stage Is Set
The stage is set.
Afternoon creeps in,
settling into the velvet,
waiting for the weight of the hour
to unravel,
petal by petal.
The patchwork of calico and cream
lies undisturbed in a slow, rhythmic rise and fall.
Dust, shadow, silence—
just soft things to curl into.
Nothing argues my nap here.
–jujube
Pigments of Time
Pigments of time
blots and blooms
into the canvas of dawn.
The tiered eaves of the ancient pagoda
sign off the night with the waking ray
Mist drifts apart
like a half-whispered morning greeting
forever deferred in the bleed of light.
–Jujube
A Winter Tree
Tangled vines,
like frayed harp-strings,
enact a wayward joy.
Worldlings have turned away,
hidden indoors to nurse their fire.
But the trunk bends
into a question mark
between frost and rust,
challenging all the assumptions of the season.
–Jujube
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
— Robert Frost
Prism
Where the light fractures,
no shadow, past or present,
can hide you.
Time, pinned in space:
does it lift what you carry,
or anchor it forever?
Amid the silent roar,
going, yet never gone,
you stand,
trying to finish the sentence.
— Jujube
Visiting the Sky-Mother Mountain in a Dream: A Song of Farewell
脚著谢公屐，
身登青云梯。
半壁见海日，
空中闻天鸡。
…
列缺霹雳，
丘峦崩摧。
洞天石扉，
訇然中开。
Wearing the climbing shoes of Lord Xie,
I ascend the ladder of blue clouds.
Halfway up, I see the sun rising from the sea,
In mid-air, I hear the rooster of heaven crow.
…
Lightning flashes and thunder roars,
The peaks and ridges crumble and break.
The stone gate of the cavernous heaven,
Thunders open to reveal the sky.
— Li Bai 李白 (701-762)
My Princess
My small, preserved princess,
you cradle yesterday’s snow
and last night’s shadow,
each a parenthesis in fur
around your perfect refusal.
How delicately you decline
the invitation to wake
and play the part assigned.
The nursery clock has stopped at forever,
and still, you will not blink.
— Jujube
The Darkling Thrush
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
— Thomas Hardy
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