Myra here.
It’s that time of the week again when we feed our souls with verse and luminous lines. I am glad to be joining the Poetry Friday community again this week hosted in Carol’s Corner. Do visit her round-up post for more poetic goodness.
For the past several weeks, I have been feeding my spirit with verse from Naomi Shihab Nye’s collection here –Â This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World.
Since we are on a Festival of Asian Literature theme, I found this lovely poem from China that I wish to share with all of you. I have taken photos of the pages (it’s quite a long poem) and as per usual I edited it using an iPhone app.
Your experience of the poem might be a bit segmented as I didn’t want to crowd the image with too many text. I do wish though that it moves you the same way that it made me clutch at my heart, as I dream of a piece of sky and lovers standing together in stillness. I also love how the poem ended with a sharp thud back at reality with “This pining’s pointless,” and a tearing of the pages, the “fingers and pain,” and the hunting for butterflies. This poem fills my heart: A Headstrong Boy by Gu Cheng.
Gathering Books 
“I’d like to draw dawn, the smile dew sees” is so beautiful, Myra. I have this anthology, but don’t remember the poem-will find it! The ending is heartbreaking, isn’t it?
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Those last three stanzas…oh my. Just lovely and haunting.
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Oh my, I see what you mean, Myra. I’m clutching my heart as I write this. Crayons… wow.
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This is just to say that I have been here and read your words, but surgery on both thumbs last Tuesday prevents me from typing a personalized comment. Forgive me — copy/paste is the best I can do this week! 🙂
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After all the lists of beautiful things he identifies with, that last stanza is a heart-wrench. Oh to give him a box of 64 Crayolas, a ream of chaste white paper, along with boatlads of hope.
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Wow, the imagery in this just blew me away. So imaginative and RIGHT. I don’t have this anthology but I will soon. Thank you for letting us know about it!
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