The Grass Minstrel: [feet bound. . .]

Friday, October 26, 2012

[feet bound. . .]

feet bound

in silken slippers—

writing nushu,

sworn sisters

free their muffled voices

GUSTS 16, fall/winter 2012

(Nushu was a secret writing system used exclusively by women in a remote part of China.)

1 comment:

janetldOctober 26, 2012 at 8:05 PM
This is a remarkable, meaningful poem. I learned something too!
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The Grass Minstrel

Sometimes
I wake
and before me
the familiar hills rise,
tendered by shadow,
burnished by light,
and for once I see
the high black gloss
of carpenter bees
folding their bodies lovingly
around stamens,
and the last monarchs
on the last asters
open and close
their numinous stiff wings
like the wordless pages
of a book,
and it becomes
for a moment possible
to forgive the world
and its myriad beings
for being
exactly as they are,
and to sing
among the lesser minstrels of the grass
even as the burnish fades
toward winter
and toward night.

............. jwa

tanka

Friday, October 26, 2012

[feet bound. . .]

1 comment: