March 3, 2011

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










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