FRONTIER-MOUNTAIN MOON

Over Heaven Mountain, the bright moon
rises through a boundless sea of cloud.

A hundred thousand miles long, steady
wind scouring Jasper-Gate Pass howls.

Our armies moving down White-Ascent Road,
Mongols probing along Sky-Blue Seas—

soldiers never return from those forced
marches ending on battlefields. Countless

guards look out across moonlit borderlands,
thinking of home, their faces all grief.

And somewhere, high in a tower tonight,
a restless woman cries out in half-sleep.