Songs from Along the Cove

"My small house is like a fishing boat
surrounded by water and clouds.
In the empty kitchen cold vegetables are boiled,
wet reeds burning in the broken stove."
– Su Shi, from "Rain on the Festival of Cold Food"





Living on a Boat


How many these days wake
to the crashing lake waves against their boat?
Our double hull here is hitched
to the long pier like a wayward horse.

Out on the deck, against a cool morning sun
I find my legs after a long cup,
then my eyes begin to face back into water
as morning coots scuttle across the cove.

Look around, we are in a great cup!
Rocky lake, shoreline sandstone,
we work all day by draping clothes
across our lines and dry by hours' waves.