Ways of Being Waste and Wayside

The poems of the unconnected poet

Are like Lu Jia’s mountain camphor woods,

While the poets interleaved with poets,

The well-known names linked in ornate patterns,

Echo his dry poplars by the roadside—

Fragrant, carved and burnished to give off light,

Decorated, made ritual vessels,

Part of academy ceremonies,

They get through, saved for ancestral temples.

It’s an apt analogy, but let’s beg

To differ just a little with you, Lu.

The timber that thrives in the deep mountains

Only to tumble into dark ravines,

Unharvested, never carved for temples,

Never cut to museum collections,

Is not wasted, or is no more wasted

Than the poplars fashioned into beakers,

Great Earth and Grain vessels, ritual cups.

Blocked by rugged slopes, collapsed in dark creeks,

They become what they were, the wilderness,

However perfectly patterned, unseen,

While every war brings more temples to dust.

Then, too, not all poplars by the wayside

End their days as craftwork worth preserving—

Wild wastes also haunt these dried-up branches,

Imperfectly patterned, never cut down.