Yinxi’s rambling response
Galloping hooves at a hillside field
or flickers in a bush,
the flaking swell in a written line –
I don’t care what is regarded of worth,
such things, the music in language,
the beat,
its subtle swells and tones
are fragrance in the lane
of dog-rose,
rot behind a hedge –
No,
something is always going to catch us –
a skitting chaffinch
on the white and breaking tarmac,
and a sudden shot of holly, shining in the hedge
are the 10,000 things,
the 400,000 languages,
richness –
it’s all an eclipse which allows little stars to be seen
*
‘the fortunate one has attributes’ –
to do the thing you are here to do –
the one thing you can do –
‘to keep the channels open’ –
to ‘illuminate and gladden’
with your unfortunate body’s
skilful means
*
a tiny spider’s precision from chard to potatoes,
long wire spider, upside-down from the light fitting,
hanging in her net of air
the leaves get fatter; a pile of saw-clean yellow wood,
the old stone lintel, used now to prop up a gate;
fragment of van bumper stuck in a bank
*
The space between heaven and earth is like a bellows
the spirit of the valley –
use it, it will never fail
he who does not trust enough (they say)
is not to be trusted:
ruling a country the same as cooking a small fish
*
When we lose awe there will be a disaster, they said
that swelling Green is ‘the sea of suffering’
Ah! At evening, honeysuckle,
the dog sniffs the hedge,
the hunt is for everything
the stream’s brown crystals sing
a cuckoo in the rain
