Shang Dynasty Bronzes

The RWP prompt went up late today, so instead I wrote this stream of consciousness one about a museum trip…

Many thanks for the birthday wishes, and especially to Rachel, Barbara, Rallentanda, Swapna and Christopher (unless there’s more I don’t know of) for their birthday poems! And I also discovered I’ll be having two small poems popping up on a handful of stones in the next couple months; that and I’ll have a poem up for one single impression in a week-ish. It’s been six months since I started this poetry journey (four of those on here), and I’m not quite sure what the next step I take ought to be…

Shang Dynasty Bronzes

Do you hear me, you wise old ghosts?

I gaze at the bells and learn the lesson of autumn:

all things must pass, and leave

beauty in their wake.  Their faces all are covered

with sea-green skin, having known such a heavy

eternal amount of earth.  They breathe.

They long for my fingers, for wooden hammers

to clear their throats again.  I can see

your eyes round their edges, wise old ghosts,

I can see the snakes and spiders,

the trees and hopes and complaints

in their angular simplicity.  What did you think

when you first took the oxbones from the fire?

What did you translate from those fissures?

Did you see the glory of the empire,

reaching outward from a jewel-like sea

to a desert paved with spice-scented bones,

your hearts striving at their ribcages,

or did you see this holy chorus, perfectly formed

and gathering new skin behind its glass?

You wise old ghosts, didn’t you know

that autumn is a hoary old teacher,

dropping his leaves in melancholy applause?

He chuffs his cheeks with

a wind that scatters the birds from their nests,

shifting the bells; they have no metal tongues,

if ever they did, but I am watching,

I still hear their hollow bronze moans,

and I wonder, you wise old ghosts,

if you are comfortable underneath.