Attributed to Qu Ding

Attributed to Qu Ding

Mark Sullivan

Though we gather ourselves 

 out of this hush（安静，肃静）, out of these summer palaces 

 and mountainside pavilions（楼阁，大帐篷）, from the absence 

 of sound that attends the ending of a sudden shower, 

 and the return of daily sounds rushing into this void --

 geese signaling their pleasure, laundry clapped 

 against stones -- we will never be more 

 than apart from all this. It makes a kind of clothing 

 that we wear, outfit not fashioned 

 for comfort or protection, but as though an alb 

 made of mists hung in the vestry（教堂法衣室）, 

 awaiting certain ceremonies 

 and sacraments（圣礼）, the evening's late hesitation 

 above the river, the avenues turned to glass

 in the chemistry of rain. Nothing, it goes 

 with everything, and so we bring it out 

 as one might have the imperial librarian descend 

 to the archives for the scroll on sized 

 silk and uncoil its soft cinema 

 between royal hands, right to left. 

 This pastiche of light, this allegory of weather 

 where the rain stands for the fertility of rain 

 and the host peak and its attendants range like a court 

 that will rule forever, but with the benign 

 impartiality of rock and water. Whether memory 

 or mirror we could hardly say, 

 yet this slip of cloth woven from unwound cocoons（蚕茧） 

 and deepened with valleys and sheltered retreats 

 seems to give us back to ourselves, 

 an urgency of air we hadn't noticed 

 but was with us all along, when the wind, for instance 

 came in through the window with transparent messages 

 that announced the storm and were the storm.