Translations from the Chinese/The Man With the Rake
THE MAN WITH THE RAKE
IT is queer to think that many people
Have never raked leaves.
On a brilliant Sunday morning in October
I admired trees as ruddy as burnt orange,
Trees as pale and clear as Sauterne.
The Sauterne of the leaves, I said to myself,
Raking placidly
And enjoying the crisp rustle.
That is what I like about raking leaves—
It is wine and opiate for the mind:
The incessant skirmish of the wits is calmed,
And as you rake and burn
And dodge, with smarting eyes,
The pungent, veering reek,
You fall into a dull easy muse,
And think to yourself,
After all, what is writing books
But raking leaves?
And at such times
I plant the seeds of poems.
It takes poems a long while to grow—
They lie germinating in the dark of the mind;
But next spring, very likely,
There may emerge the green and tender shoots
Of two or three bright stanzas.