Li Po Returns to His Lover in the Night

In honor of the Poet
Immortal who drowned trying to embrace the moon’s reflection in a river

It is magical indeed

how I fell without suffering

into the watered moon-

light, how I still

breathe within the wind.

Can you hear me

rattle the leaves

over your head

moaning like your new lover

against the dark earth?

Do you feel it now, my smooth

hand sweeps the hair

from your glistening eyes

as gentle

as the abandoned lotus

petal that falls from the flower

behind your ear, that swirls across

the silken robes crumbled at your feet?

Even though in this pale-

shadowed night you find me

in each sigh, tomorrow

do not bemoan my passing.

With every breath I come
and go,

like the moon laden tears of dew

I vanish in a blaze of
morning light.

CR 2006 by M. D. Friedman