The Sadness of Bái Sùzhēn

The crowd circles in a dutiful soft swirl:
grandparents on sticks, a braided girl
of six, hand held tightly by a sleepy aunt.
I have done this hajj before before but can't
bring myself to sing its sharp imperial glory,
or tell its myth again in a language worthy
of the poets who wrote--with the sadness of willows--
of the plight of the scholars and the sorrow
of men who lived by paper, ink and book:
'Amongst the mountain temples I look
for the osmanthus petals whence fell the moon
into this lake". Antiquity comes too soon
to places of great comfort and refuge where minds
fly to shed the crust of boredom and find
not peace but air and breath and guarded light--
gray light as on mist-strewn days. Warm and bright
the lake is not her best. The people come
but the spectre of Xu Xian sleeps solemnly at home,
slumbers and will not rise from the water
to greet the masses circling towards some center.