Lu Yu (AD 1125-1209)

On the day of Lu Yu's last sickness

a thin coffin was ready,

and two quilts to cover him,

and the gravediggers paid

                                 their work done.

Then he started to write another poem

a short time before death,

about drinking wine again in the village -

He was working on the poem when they buried him,

so that half a line protruded from the earth

                                 in wind and weather's hearing -

With sunlight touching the first young syllables,

the last ones flowering from a dark coffin:

                      "marketplace the in/drink more One"

The first three words above ground

the last ones wine in the Red Dust.

Near the village of Shanyang

                                 in Chekiang Province…