BREAKFAST AT NOONDAY-ASCENSION MOUNTAIN

These thousand peaks offer the beauties of spring again,

and what do I offer them? Nothing but mounting alarm.

Clouds plunder cragged cliffs where birds sing in trees,

rain swells mountain streams, cascades scattering petals,

and I can’t see past thatch roofs, a wisp of kitchen smoke,

but I know exactly how starvation will look in this village.

I knew there’d be no meat for breakfast. But they barely

even manage bamboo shoots: just two or three wisps each.