Doug Anderson: Anonymous from the Han Dynasty
I have been your scribe now almost fifty years and soon I’ll be replaced by a younger man and you’ll let me live out my old age in a cottage in the hills as you did old Lin. I have finished your inventory of the armory set it down and sent it to you although you cannot read. You have a concubine who can and she’ll read it to you and you’ll be comforted. I lied, you do not have that many spears, but it won’t matter. There is no one now to contest your power. Therefore I’ll meditate. What a relief to sit by the waterfall and let my mind go like this, each thought a bubble rising from the bottom of a pond where I imagine the bright leaves floating above, like everyone who knows that death is near.
Copyright 2020 Doug Anderson
I lied, you do not have that many spears,
but it won’t matter. There is no one now
to contest your power. — This reminds me of another man that is lied to….
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Another poet I have learned about through Vox Populi, and I am grateful. This was the perfect poem to wake up to. Thank you.
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