George Scarbrough

Green and brown current of river: Reverberant iron bridge: crossing over, Woman and child fixed at the center, Holding hands and both weeping: Because her child is weeping: because His mother weeps: because the river, far Underfoot, glitters through cracks In the wooden flooring that widen Perceptively as he steps. Ahead, heightened by a hill, dwarfed In yellow trees, the house is made ready. All should have been primer-perfect, Including the train rushing headlong Past the station, always in arrears, Never deigning to stop and put down A stepping-stool. Nothing more is given: Except perhaps an assignment of cause: A plank has fallen away to the river. The two figures clasp hands across the gulf, Rocking back and forth in soundless Oscillation there on the bridge Where my mind proposes to leave them In place, my mother and me, On the first day of school, 1921.

Han-Shan sits on a flat stone In his garden and plays the flute, Mimicking the birds singing among The gourd vines or from the top Of the blue pine tree. Or he constructs a new trellis For the rambling rose over his front Gate or works at the great loom in his porch, Weaving his own coverlets. Sometimes, he paints drinking gourds To hang at his cold spring. His poems, delicate but strong, Paper the ceiling above his bed, So he can lie and read His own masterpieces. No man, he avers, can catch Such fish in one basket.