china poems

chinese influences

other poems

Nantong: The Moth

In the painting
I saw hanging
in a hotel lobby:
huge, white mountains—
and in the foreground,
three bamboo trees
next to a lake,
and a boat with
two fishermen,
one leaning on
a long stick.

Then a moth fluttered
crazily past me,
and just as it
alighted on
a bamboo tree
in the painting,

I thought of Chuang Tzu,
who once dreamed
he was a butterfly,
and on waking,
wasn’t sure if he was
Chuang Tzu, or
the butterfly dreaming
it was Chuang Tzu.

I gazed until the moth
fluttered away,
and regained my senses.

click here for a printable version