None the less the maxims of Confucius are venerable, and your voice pleasant. I listen attentively….
Wusih
The Story Teller
In a corner of the market-place he sits, his face the target
for many eyes.
The sombre crowd about him is motionless. Behind
their faces no lamp burns; only their eyes glow
faintly with a reflected light.
For their eyes are on his face.
It alone is alive, is vibrant, moving bronze under a sun
of bronze.
The taut skin, like polished metal, shines along his
cheek and jaw. His eyes cut upward from a slender
nose, and his quick mouth moves sharply out
and in.
Artful are the gestures of his mouth, elaborate and
full of guile. When he draws back the bow of
his lips his face is like a mask of lacquer, set with
teeth of pearl, fantastic, terrible….
What strange tale lives in the gestures of his mouth?
Does a fox-maiden, bewitching, tiny-footed, lure a
scholar to his doom? Is an unfilial son tortured
of devils? Or does a decadent queen sport with
her eunuchs?
I cannot tell.
The faces of the people are wooden; only their eyes
burn dully with a reflected light.
I shall never know.
I am alien … alien.
Nanking
The Well
The Second Well under Heaven lies at the foot of the
Sacred Mountain.
Perhaps the well is sacred because it is clean; or perhaps
it is clean because it is sacred.
I cannot tell.
At the bottom of the well are coppers and coins with
square holes in them, thrown thither by devout
hands. They gleam enticingly through the shallow
water.
The people crowd about the well, leaning brown covetous
faces above the coping as my copper falls
slantwise to rest.