Another by Du Fu

Birds are whiter on the blue river.

Flowers flame up on the green mountain.

Spring, I see, has come and gone again.

What day--what year--will I return home?

--my tr.

In Answer to a Poem by Subprefect Zhang

In my old age, I want only peace.
The ten thousand things are not my concern.
I've no plan for the rest of my life
but to come back to this, my ancient woods.
Piney wind blows my girdle open.
Mountain moon lights upon the lute I play.
So where's the warp and weft of the world?
Fishermen's songs come far up the inlet.
--Wang Wei, my tr.

Playing the Zheng for General Zhou

While playing the zheng
with millet-gold posts,
her fair hands moving
over the jade frame,
hoping that Zhou Yu
will turn and look,
every so often
she plucks the wrong note.
--Li Duan, my tr.

Did you know that the U.S. conducts a yearly immigration lottery for people who want to come here but have no particular qualifying criteria for admission? Several million people apply for about 20,000 slots. Because of some error in the lottery process, in 2010 the government invalidated the results after the 20,000 winners had been notified. In trying to rationalize immigration policies, we must remember that those policies apply not just to those crossing the southern border from Mexico without having gone through the prescribed application procedure.

A Compromise with the Dead

Who wanted to rest
in her most-mended panties
was laid down instead
in her muddy garden shoes.

Know God by the Perfection of His Works

There once was a world with no God
Where poodles came already shod
And the value of pi
Was slightly awry
So wheels just sank in the sod.


There was another world with no God
Where all the girls got named Todd
And no one could hear
For they shit through an ear
And so would just smile and nod.

Why Didn't They Just Say So in the First Place?

Recently heard an interview with the imam who wants to build the "Ground Zero Mosque." It was mentioned pretty much incidentally that he's a Sufi. A Sufi fer chrissake! It's like being afraid of Quakers or Unitarians because they're Christian like the KKK. Sufis, who are much more mystical than grimly legalistic, are widely persecuted by Muslim fundamentalists. Sufis are Whirling Dervishes, the poet Rumi, the late, and truly great, qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.