Bird Singing in the Empty Mountain

The melody is vanishing into where sunlight meets the shade,

The erhu player wipes the strings, encases the instrument,

and sit down to chat. A couple quietly pick off the shell of lima beans.

A young man is lying on the bench with his eyes wide-opened to the sky.

The gnomon of the sundial moves from the underside of the plate to the North,

Sunlight pulled from the heaven's eyes to the feet of the earth, lucent and transpiring.

Cicadas fold their songs, their wings and fall down.

Lichen under the bushes greened by last night's rain.

An old woman dragging her slippers tita tita walks inside the veined corridor,

A lion-like face of an Alzheimer outfaces these people’s melancholy.

No one dares to ward off the stare, no one utters a word.

A few sparrows bump into the sunlight--

Not knowing it is the time of autumn,

Neither the life nor the death of themselves or others.

A little girl sings and claps her hands:

“You clap one, I clap two, and games is what a girl should do.”