Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Beijing Poet


photograph by Philippe Orsetti 2009

the poet's porous poems
painted on Beijing cement
soon dry and disappear

calligraphy of ink
and water lasts
only as long

as the sun
allows
or a passing
pedestrian remembers

ultimately both fade
as the liquid dries

hànzì like all entities
is translucent
transparent and transitory

so it is
that we measure
being and its entities
by evaporation
and shiny stain