Two later poems from the end of that collection,
latter part of that collection, "A Letter to Su T'ung Po."
Su T'ung Po was a great poet of the early Song
dynasty in China, a very, very remarkable man,
and as many people were in the Song dynasty,
he was exiled for whims of the imperial court
and spent a lot of time traveling
on the rivers in China.
This is a wonderful poem.
It refers to a poem of his, moonlight, the moonlight
as the boat is moving forward a long, long way from home.
"Almost a thousand years later, I
am asking the same questions you did,
the ones you kept finding yourself returning
to as though nothing had changed except the tone of them,
the tone of their echo growing deeper
and what you knew of the coming of age
before you had grown old.
I do not know any more now than you did then
about what you were asking as I sit at night
above the hushed valley, thinking of you on your river,
that one bright sheet of moonlight
in the dream of the water birds, and I hear the silence
after your questions.
How old are the questions tonight."
I want to read two or three of the newer poems, newest poems,
and then go back and read one more from that manuscript.
How are we doing for time?
I don't know.
[INAUDIBLE]
Have I lost it?
OK.
[INAUDIBLE]
"Alba"-- this is a new poem, recent one.
"Climbing in the mist, I came to a terrace wall
and saw above it to small field of broad beans in flower.
Their white fragrance was flowing through the first light
of morning there a little way up the mountain
where I had made my way through the olive groves
and under the blossoming boughs of the almonds,
above the old hut of the charcoal burner, where suddenly
the scent of the bean flowers found me.
And as I took the next step, I heard the creak
of the harness and the mule's shod hooves
striking stones in the furrow and then
the low voice of the man talking softly,
praising the mule as he walked behind
through the cloud in his white shirt along the row.
And between his own words, he was singing under his breath
a few phrases at a time of the same song,
singing it to his mule, it seemed,
as I listened, watching their breaths
and not understanding a word."