WEBVTT

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This is another
poem put together

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from working with text, which
is to say stealing and hoping

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no one finds out about it.

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If you're going to
do it, do it as I

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did this one, which
is a book published

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in Hong Kong anonymously given
to me by a wonderful student

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and poet friend of mine
named Garrett Hongo.

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It's called T'ang Notebook,
and it's 300 poems

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from the T'ang Dynasty.

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As I say, it
translated anonymously

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and published in Hong Kong.

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And I can't even remember.

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I like to think I can't
remember which are my lines

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and which are its lines anymore.

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But it's been years
since I wrote it.

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So who can remember?

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They're a series of little short
pieces called T'ang Notebook.

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The Tang dynasty of
course is the 700 and 800

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AD, the great flowering of
Chinese poetry, Tang Dynasty.

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Known for Li Po, Wang Wei, et
cetera, et cetera, [INAUDIBLE]

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great famous Chinese poet.

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Fine clouds open their outfits
and show us their buttons.

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Moonlight widens the waves.

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Step on your own song
and listen to mine.

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Not bitter like yours, not
flicked raw by flashes of dust.

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Already over Italy
the cold sun rises.

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How I would like a
mountain if I had

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means enough to
live as a recluse.

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I would like to
renounce it all and turn

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toward the ash gold of flame
mullioned between the palm

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fronds.

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That constellation with
its seven high stars

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is lifting its sword
in the moonlight.

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Sorry.

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It's lifting its
sword in the midnight.

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I love you, dog.

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I love you.

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Remain here and lengthen
your days, Pilgrim.

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Fame is a mist of grief
on the river waves.

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The low wet clouds move
faster than you do,

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snowed moon, your jade
hair sleet and grown thin.

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All night I ask what time it is.

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Stories of passion
make sweet dust.

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Sunset like a girl's robe
falling away long ago.

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An old song handles my heart.

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Outside the side
door, a luck- spider,

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huge in the flashlight's
lamp, rappels down the air

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to single a stitch and
make her starred bed.

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In the dark past the
hemlock, something

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with small bright wings has
come from a great distance

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and is tired and
wants to lie down.

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Night spreads its
handful of star clusters

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in one eclipse
above the palm tree.

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There are shuddering
birds and dead grasses

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wherever I turn my face.

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The 10,000 star fish
caught in the net of heaven

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flash at the sky's end.

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Gulls settle, like grains
of dust, on the black sand.

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Lady of light, Donna Dolorosa,
you drift like a skeleton

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through the night clouds.

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The surf comes in and
goes out like smoke.

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Give me a sign.

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Show me the blessing
pierced in my side.

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This wind that comes in
off the Pacific, where

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the color of mountains
both is and is not,

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ripples the distant marsh grass
and the gray doors of the sea.

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The evening begins to
close like a morning glory.

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Like fear in a little boat,
the light slips under the sky.

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When the mind is
loosened and borne up,

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the body is lightened and feels
it too could float in the wind.

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A bell sound between
here and sleep.

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A water egret planes
down like a page

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of blank paper toward
the edge of the noon sky.

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Let me, like him, find
an island of white reeds

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to settle down on, under
the wind, forgetting words.

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