A WHITE TURTLE UNDER A WATERFALL
—Wang Wei (701-761)
The waterfall on South Mountain hits the rocks,
tosses back its foam with terrifying thunder,
blotting out even face-to-face talk.
Collapsing water and bouncing foam soak blue moss,
old moss so thick
it drowns the spring grass.
Animals are hushed.
Birds fly but don't sing
yet a white turtle plays on the pool's sand floor
under riotous spray,
sliding about with the torrents.
The people of the land are benevolent.
No angling or net fishing.
The white turtle lives out its life, naturally.
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Tonight in Sacramento:
•••Thursday (9/6), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured readers, with open mic before and after.
Sunday in Paradise:
•••Sunday (9/9), 2:30-4 PM: Open mic poetry reading at Juice and Java, 7067 Skyway, Paradise. Info: 530-872-9633.
And next week:
•••Wednesday (9/12), 7:30-9 PM: The Snake will awaken from his summer snooze, as Rattlesnake Press presents Sacramento Poet Susan Kelly-DeWitt at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, to celebrate the release of her new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. Also released that night will be a littlesnake broadside, Blush, from Sacramento Poet Dawn DiBartolo, plus #4 in the new Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring frank andrick, and a brand-new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#15)! Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com/.
See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from Susan's book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. And read more about Susan at her nifty new website, http://www.susankelly-dewitt.com/. Click on "Chapbooks" for a sneak preview of Cassiopeia's cover.
Did you miss the last Rattlesnake Review deadline? Next one is November 15.
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LAZY ABOUT WRITING POEMS
—Wang Wei
With time I become lazy about writing poems:
Now my only company is old age.
In an earlier life I was a poet, a mistake,
and my former body belonged to a painter.
I can't abandon habits of that life
and sometimes am recognized by people of this world.
My name and pen name speak my former being
and about all this my heart is ignorant.
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MAGNOLIA BASIN
—Wang Wei
On branch tips the hibiscus bloom.
The mountains show off red calices.
Nobody. A silent cottage in the valley.
One by one flowers open, then fall.
(Today's poems were translated from the Chinese by Tony and Willis Barnstone and Xu Haixin.)
____________________
—Medusa
