POEM TO HAN-SHAN

The place where I must spend my days

Has no cold mountain, no crowded peaks

Or wild vines stirring in the windless air.

Here purpled smog plays on the ashes

Of a thousand futile fires;

Beneath the ashes huddled sleepers stir

And I must watch, lest they awake and

Smother.  But I too am under ashes

And cannot breathe, yet may not die.

                                                           -   Lorena Barros

                                                               1968