Another Way with Wang Wei
No emptiness around here: across the street
a backhoe clanking, beeping, the next-door neighbor’s
seven dogs at it again, shrill yaps mingled
with baritone yowlings, 747s thundering overhead, and
you’re upstairs in your study, too far for me
to hear your voice, but later, tonight, you’ll come down
and speak in your gentle tenor, and all
other sounds will fade—as far as Wang Wei’s mountain.
Credit
Copyright © 2018 Wendy Barker. Used with permission of the author. This poem originally appeared in The Southern Review, Summer 2018.
Author
Wendy Barker
Wendy Barker is the author of six full-length poetry collections, including One Blackbird at a Time (BkMk Press, 2015), which received the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, and four chapbooks. A recipient of an NEA Fellowship, Barker is poet-in-residence and the Pearl Lewinn Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Date Published
08/29/2018