Long after Li Shangyin

I write, my friend,
from far Bashan,
ringed with peaks,
the heart of the continent
if I came from here,
watching chill rain
gather leaves in swirling pools,
far from you, and home,
and the city by the eastern sea,
and imagine myself
on the hill above your house,
watching the two of us,
whenever we might meet again,
framed in your western window:
you light the lamp
and I begin to tell you
of cold rain on far Bashan
and of myself, here, ringed by mountains
and watching that rain,
more content now,
beheld in that uncertain future.