Painted marks two-thousand years now

preserved in paperback anthology

translate the autumn gibbon’s cry

    over river fishermen.

 

Notes in a later pen illuminate

a student’s mind as it caught light

off river wake and the turning bird.

 

Her novice hand rendered

maiden’s name in Chinese along

the stained and yellow leaves.

 

Four floors above Astoria backyards

crowded with corner gardens and laundry lines

Her son’s window catches moon and street lights

    in raindrops.

 

Behind the jeweled glass a student finds

solitary meditations join minds and

creating self becomes a shared practice.

 

It is not the gibbon’s third cry but

the fisherman’s song remembered.

 

Another pen leaves its mark

    to poetic continuity.

 

***