Official Wang

You’ve worked in Huangzhou for 33 years and no one else is left there, only you and the Yangtze River. You are like an ancient juniper that suffers the frosts of winter but puts forth green branches every spring. You are the house in Sizhou whose windows are made of pine and whose walls are stands of live bamboo. I dreamed that we held a broken lamp between us. If you and your family are coming my way, I invite you here to drink from my empty bottle. The sparse rain has passed; wind still dances with the trees. It’s not possible to tell the mist from the clouds. Meanwhile, everyone has stopped singing, people are still asleep in their beds, and it’s time to pull up our sails.