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Yesterday I pulled a dead man
out of the swollen river.
No one knows him.
The clouds crowd the mountains
and more rain will come.
We have pulled the boats
ashore and huddle in our huts.
Up river, the rich
are counting their gold
and hiring armies to protect them.
I think of the Yue warrior
with his tattooed face,
glancing quickly at the lord
he’d like to kill
and rake all that gold
into his helmet.
We’ve forgotten wisdom.
What was it?
All those books in the scribe’s
chamber and he trembles.
—–
Copyright 2021 Doug Anderson
Some poems leave a question in the air. Som we are loathe to answer it.
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