poetryspam

[lotesse]

here is a poem that I read years ago as a little girl when Cicada magazine published it, that has rattled half-forgotten around in my head ever since, and that I have only just now bothered to look up:

Joyce Sidman, "An Evening Among Peach Blossoms"

(Ts'ai Lun developed the method of making true paper in A.D. 105)

Dawn comes silently
like a lover's embrace
My Lady Who Writes,
in a few short hours I will present you
with your heart's desire.
But in this soft light
I think of the past,
when we bent our heads together.

I can still see you,
new to the court as I was,
slim and plain as a nightingale.
You turned away jewels and bright robes
for scrolls and ink.
You were a great scholar, even then.
The words you painted on silk
glimmered like the dawning sun
that rises, in time,
to its true power.

I, for my cleverness,
caught your eye.
"Ts'ai Lun!" you called
in your bird's voice.
"I must write, yet silk is costly.
There is never enough.
Find me something I can write upon!"

Sixteen years I labored.
Searching the countryside,
mixing and scraping and stretching
anything I could find.
I lived for the moment
I could bring my humble offerings
to your sight, watch your white hand
move over the page.
"No," you would say softly,
"it is not good enough, Ts'ai Lun.
Keep working."
And I would bow, joyful
that the task was still before me.

The sun, which rises now
above the garden, dries and cures my work.
Smooth and perfect,
the paper awaits your brush.
Soon I will see your hand
fly like the white breast of a swallow
across the page.
Sixteen years was like an eventing
spent among peach blossoms.
I, clever Ts'ai Lun,
half-a-man,
lament that my task is done.