After Much Ice and Snow Televised from Vancouver I Wonder If Tu Fu Is Dry & Safe In His “Night in the House by the River”

The darkening planet drinks the sun where are the islands of delight by Laila Rahman. Image Courtesy: ArtChowk Gallery

It is still early this far north.
The days let us live
Life in full illusion.
Outside the new snowfall,
Wet and unwanted,
Glimmers in our eyes.
In the dark we watch re-runs,
Old movies; the dead die so quickly.
Above our pine trees,
the overcast clouds,
The satellites whorl black black cold.
All over the world DPs search
For small fires, someone with comfort,
A story to dream. By day I bring
The dead back with soldiers, wives,
Newborns, elders. Please don’t tell
Me you don’t remember.
In this world what we have
Keep us wide awake all night.

~ DeWitt Clinton

DeWitt Clinton is Emeritus Professor at the University of Wisconsin—Whitewater, and lives in Shorewood, Wisconsin. A few poems from his book-length adaptation of Kenneth Rexroth’s ‘100 Poems from the Chinese’ have appeared in Cha: An Asian Literary Quarterly, qarrtsiluni, and Verse Wisconsin.