Aubade

Sleep, and do not ope your eyes
To squint low in the dawn sun's glow,
And do not say I have to go,
Though you may think it to be wise.

But sleep and dream the slow, soft dreams
That bring a peace to your closed eyes,
Of snow that falls as dust and lies
Like shroud-white lace spread out in reams.

The frost clings to the green-grassed ground;
The sun drifts red and raw on rack.
If you should wake and turn your back,
I would be slain by sleet, or bound.

And when you sleep, you know no pain;
And when you wake, you will tell me
Each line of fault you still will see,
But when you sleep, you eye no strain.

So sleep, and let the dawn stay closed,
Far from your dreams. Do not be wise,
For you are mine until your eyes
Look once on fear, and all is lost.
Hsien Min
Written 3rd March 1998



Meteora

Rising like knuckles, rising out of the scrub,
Rising a hundred yards, huge hunks of rock,
Rising like griseous lumps of Emmenthal,
Surface catacombs, streamlined across,
Grooved downward, wind and water, sun-rechurched,
Suspended in the air, appendage-stout
Katholikons, hewn out of rock, aloof,
Stigmatized, those Martian monasteries.

Hsien Min



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