Violet Wilson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
violetcheetah) wrote2013-08-24 09:30 am
violetcheetah) wrote2013-08-24 09:30 am
Two very different poems with "River" in the titles
Both of these were originally written in 1999 at the latest. The first was inspired by news reports from the chaos going on at the time in Eastern Europe. The second was inspired by a documentary on The Learning Channel — back when TLC had educational value — about the planned flooding in China for the Three Gorges Dam hydroelectric project, and some of the sites that would be underwater, or would become islands. Anyway, there was a temple, Buddhist? Confucian? The details are fuzzy, so I'll just say, the poem is based loosely on real events.
-------
Across the border
I watched a woman spit in a soldier's right eye
just before he put a bullet through her face.
From the cover of the briars by the side of the road
I saw another girl weep and plead and finally nod,
agreeing to the toll this bridge troll would take.
Then once his snaps were undone she recanted;
it took four aides to pin her limbs against a tree
while payment was rendered. Even I could see
he would have to kill her for going back on her word.
Still, he kept his promise: he led her over the river
to freedom before his knife opened her throat.
I make my decision and make my way to the bridge.
I brace myself against the milestone and lift my skirts
and gaze past his scarred ear at that other shore.
That tree: I will walk across this bridge and
past her throatless body and stand beneath that elm
and I will wash the blood from my thighs in the river.
I will leave the blood here at the border,
and I will never speak of it or soldiers or martyrs again.
-------
By the river
Ancient wise words
inscribed in slow calligraphy on the long tiles of the temple walls.
There was no need for stained glass or gilt altars,
just the soft curves and sure lines left by men who knew
what matters is the message,
who died at peace, sure that the message would last the centuries.
They could not see
the soldiers coming now across the bridge to the stairs in the cliff,
following the orders of a leader afraid of anything so calm
that it might slow the white-water river surging through him until
he could hear his own words
and know that his message would not survive on the stone above his forgotten grave.
But priests and pupils
hear the soldiers' march and see the sure words blur through their tears.
They kneel beneath the tiles with faces lifted as if the words could flow
like water from the walls to fill them, but each mark is solid and true,
strong as the soldiers' steps
as they march up the steps to break what a thousand years hadn't touched.
A bowl of ink
sits on the floor; they were to have practiced their own calligraphy
with slim brushes on the parchment laid out at their feet.
The young boy stands and struggles to take down a tile as tall as he,
then turn its back to him,
dips his brush, and uses his beautiful strokes to write the lies
of the soldiers' leader,
words he was ashamed to have even heard, had never dreamed he would write.
The ink-stained hands of his mentor lift the stone to its place,
then move to take the others down while each student dips his own pen.
They have inscribed nightmares
on every tile and rehung them backwards by the time the soldiers arrive.
Each soldier knows
what is written on the true faces of the stones, but not one dares
to destroy anything that holds the writings of his general and god.
They kneel as they have been taught and recite the words they see,
then rise and step back
through the door to begin the twilight march down the cliffside.
Decades will pass,
and the young boy will learn, and teach, and grow stooped with age,
and with time spent bent over parchment and pupils, and friends' graves.
The general will die in exile, and the teacher will scrub faded ink
from the back of each stone,
turn each tile and lift it into place until he is exhausted.
But another set of wrinkled hands
will lift the last piece, and when the teacher turns he will see a soldier
who has climbed this mountain before. The soldier will kneel
as he was taught by his own mentor before he heard of his general.
He will leave his uniform shirt by the ink-stained bowl,
he will take the student's shift offered by the teacher,
and for the first time in decades, a calligrapher's brush
will call his fingers home.
-------
Across the border
I watched a woman spit in a soldier's right eye
just before he put a bullet through her face.
From the cover of the briars by the side of the road
I saw another girl weep and plead and finally nod,
agreeing to the toll this bridge troll would take.
Then once his snaps were undone she recanted;
it took four aides to pin her limbs against a tree
while payment was rendered. Even I could see
he would have to kill her for going back on her word.
Still, he kept his promise: he led her over the river
to freedom before his knife opened her throat.
I make my decision and make my way to the bridge.
I brace myself against the milestone and lift my skirts
and gaze past his scarred ear at that other shore.
That tree: I will walk across this bridge and
past her throatless body and stand beneath that elm
and I will wash the blood from my thighs in the river.
I will leave the blood here at the border,
and I will never speak of it or soldiers or martyrs again.
-------
By the river
Ancient wise words
inscribed in slow calligraphy on the long tiles of the temple walls.
There was no need for stained glass or gilt altars,
just the soft curves and sure lines left by men who knew
what matters is the message,
who died at peace, sure that the message would last the centuries.
They could not see
the soldiers coming now across the bridge to the stairs in the cliff,
following the orders of a leader afraid of anything so calm
that it might slow the white-water river surging through him until
he could hear his own words
and know that his message would not survive on the stone above his forgotten grave.
But priests and pupils
hear the soldiers' march and see the sure words blur through their tears.
They kneel beneath the tiles with faces lifted as if the words could flow
like water from the walls to fill them, but each mark is solid and true,
strong as the soldiers' steps
as they march up the steps to break what a thousand years hadn't touched.
A bowl of ink
sits on the floor; they were to have practiced their own calligraphy
with slim brushes on the parchment laid out at their feet.
The young boy stands and struggles to take down a tile as tall as he,
then turn its back to him,
dips his brush, and uses his beautiful strokes to write the lies
of the soldiers' leader,
words he was ashamed to have even heard, had never dreamed he would write.
The ink-stained hands of his mentor lift the stone to its place,
then move to take the others down while each student dips his own pen.
They have inscribed nightmares
on every tile and rehung them backwards by the time the soldiers arrive.
Each soldier knows
what is written on the true faces of the stones, but not one dares
to destroy anything that holds the writings of his general and god.
They kneel as they have been taught and recite the words they see,
then rise and step back
through the door to begin the twilight march down the cliffside.
Decades will pass,
and the young boy will learn, and teach, and grow stooped with age,
and with time spent bent over parchment and pupils, and friends' graves.
The general will die in exile, and the teacher will scrub faded ink
from the back of each stone,
turn each tile and lift it into place until he is exhausted.
But another set of wrinkled hands
will lift the last piece, and when the teacher turns he will see a soldier
who has climbed this mountain before. The soldier will kneel
as he was taught by his own mentor before he heard of his general.
He will leave his uniform shirt by the ink-stained bowl,
he will take the student's shift offered by the teacher,
and for the first time in decades, a calligrapher's brush
will call his fingers home.