Morning Meditation on Liu’s West Balcony in Lunghsing Temple

 

In 805, exile bestowed
on Liu Tsung-Yuan
a post without work,
a title without home—

until a Buddhist temple
took him in,
and the exile,
set in shade,

found himself facing
the retrograde north—
anti-solar, austere—
yet he remembered:

beyond the western wall
a mighty river ran,
with forested hills
and mystic valleys,

and there, each dusk,
through silk of air,
the sun would dance for him
its adroit lettering of light.

So Liu cut the western wall
and made a balcony—
a balcony to welcome
what lies beyond—

so that dark turned bright,
solar, concise, winged.
If poems and songs
are wings for hearts,

then Juliet balconies
are parallel wings too—
not only for houses
but for the Way itself—

opening where others
see only dark,
and where même la lune,
qui est toujours verte,

might learn the grace
of its own sunset—
how soul and solitude
follow and stroll,

even if silent,
in each other’s steps,
as each tends gently
one more place to live.