Poem
for Wolfgang Laib
a life
of collecting pollen
from hazelnut bushes
a life of gathering word-grains
to find all you have wanted
all you have waited to say
five
mountains
we cannot climb
hills we cannot touch
perhaps we are only here
to say house, bridge, or gate
a passage
to somewhere else
yellow molecules
spooned and sifted
from a jar filled with
sunlight
pouring
milk
over
stone
you are the energy
that breaks form
building wax houses
pressed from combs
a wax room
set upon a mountain
an offering of rice
nowhere everywhere
the songs of Shams
—Shin Yu Pai
previously published in Equivalence (La Alameda, 2003)
HOZHO*
no
words
but in
actions
reduce
compress
present
tense operations
perform
bird’s eye
view
of compost
composition
not figure
against ground
likeness & unlikeness
pigment ground
electrical currents
a basis for
belief in
the collapse of
meaning
into the intimate & the vast
(* the Navajo word for “beauty”, balance, harmony - & the effort towards)
—Shin Yu Pai
previously published in !Tex! magazine
chop wood, carry water
love and adventure are
words that can be found
in any dictionary -
they are simple days
free of high romance,
excitement another
person might call
them boring:
sweep porch
wash dishes
boil rice
boil water
sit at writing desk
sit before shrine
write poems
I left my work to learn how
sit
sleep
& breathe
I count all the people
who have entered
both my life and
heart on
one open
hand
—Shin Yu Pai
previously published in !Tex! magazine
A conversation between Huidobro and Braque
Is a poem a poem?
And isn’t an orange just an orange,
and not an apple?
Yet next to each other, the orange
ceases to be orange
the apple ceases to be apple,
and together the two
become fruit.
—Shin Yu Pai
first published in Gastronomica and later published Equivalence (La Alameda, 2003)
Recipe for Paper
I.
Send legal briefs, failed attempts at love
letters and other confidential documents
through a shredder,
soak over night in a warm bath,
scoop handful of wet paper
into kitchen blender add
boiled daffodil stems,
mashed into a pulp, then blend
black tea leaves, garlic
or onion skin,
translucent stains
of color,
pulp until smooth as oatmeal
in a plastic tub combine
one part pulp to 3 parts water
II.
A closely guarded secret for centuries until the T’ang Dynasty, when on the banks of the Tarus River, Islamic warriors overtook a caravan traveling on the Silk Road, spiriting Chinese prisoners away to Samarkand. Their lives spared in exchange for sharing their secret with the Western world. Samarkand fast became a paper-making capital and the practice of slaughtering three hundred sheep to make a single sheet of parchment hide quickly became a thing of the past.
The addition of crushed spices creates a textured surface to the paper, as do crumbled tea leaves, coffee grounds, and dried flowers. When a freshly pulled sheet of paper is pressed beneath a warm steam iron, the fragrance of these organic materials is slowly released into the air.
Before the invention of paper the sutras were incised into cave walls, verses from Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching painted on silk. In ancient China, Tsai L’un, Director of the Imperial Office of Weapons and Instruments, won the favor of the emperor. By pounding the branches of mulberry trees and husking bamboo with a wooden mallet, Tsai L’un discovered the method of separating plant filaments into individual fibers. Mixed with water and poured into a vat, a bamboo screen was submerged into the suspension. The tangled mass floating to the water’s surface and trapped on top of the mold resulted in a thin layer of interwoven fibers. Drained, pressed, and hung to dry, the birth of “Tsai ko-shi.”
The history of paper contained within a mulberry bark and seed, the paper on which these words are printed.
The poet should consider this story with care throughout the years.
—Shin Yu Pai
previously published in Equivalence (La Alameda, 2003)