Back Then Skirts Were Not Merely Skirts But Light Breezes Women Used to Wear And They Themselves Knew That Well

 

“Now how can I get myself dancers

and singers with skirts like breezes

and fans like the moving moon?”

Wu Zao (1799-1862), The Fake Image

 

It is auspicious and good for us

to be reminded by Wu Zao’s

venerable 19^th century voice

that skirts in bygone days

were not just skirts—

 

but breezes or zephyrs,

undulating, serpentine,

fluttering, and swirling

like the sinuous Wind

who set down Psyche

 

into Eros’ clasping arms

as told in Apuleius’ Tale

of the Golden Ass—the only

Roman novel to survive intact

the sinful burnings of old books.

How Many Senses Come to Autumn Hearts?

 

The air’s pounded blue

in the wake of the nighttime rain,

and this too can prove

that Autumn has begun anew

 

            by splitting light and dark.

Into two precisely equal parts,

            but with a gentle tip—

towards the advancing night.

 

And the trees, once more

in going out, are trying to flash

            their toying pink or rouge

 

just as the soil grows again softer,

moist—like a poem’s gentle speech

            when readied to be tilled.

One of the Big Lies of Saturn alias Satan Is That, Beyond Him, There’s But Chaos

 

According to Luo Qilan, “the worthy

and the wise are fettered” as if the fools

were free and Saturnalia had never ceased.

But, yes, we are all enmeshed in worldliness.

 

Though some can make out of it a killing

while others nurse and tend to infirmity

and suffering which still others multiply,

and others still know to build great homes

 

or making amazing dishes, breads, and beds.

And, yes, women are still commonly fettered

more than men but, as a rule because of that,

 

they know it better and more than most men.

But poetry too if it’s to be poetry still, is bound.

Whether with measure or love’s beat in heart.