Friday, March 09, 2012

Red Wheelbarrow rolls on ...

Here'a a response from my Red Wheelbarrow call for poems about our 'servants' (tools, etc) in the garden. The response was very disappointing, so please, don't hold back - those secateurs deserve praise, that leaky tap deserves a rant, the sun shining off yr glittering tomatoes deserves an ecstatic chant. Send to burkeandre(at)gmail(dot)com if the Comment panel doesn't work for you.

To My Rusty Red Wheelbarrow


If so much depends
on the fucking
red wheelbarrow
why not head over
to Walmart
and buy yourself
another? -- is the
backyard mantra
I mutter to myself
all afternoon long

But the message
I really want
to leave behind is --
wheelbarrow
be damned –
you must take
nothing for granted

And remember
so much more
depends
on the trusty red shovel
and strong sturdy back
without which the
red wheelbarrow would
only continue to gather
rust in the rain 




Lan Hua
jlampoet@gmail.com
www.tangspirit.net 


Lan Hua is the pen name for an American born writer and translator who lives in New York with his wife and two cocker spaniels. Lan Hua’s most recent work is a book length translation of The Adventures of Monkey King. He is also currently at work on the first English translation of a group of mystical poems called the Gan Yu written in the late 7th Century by Chen Ziang.

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