If it rains
in the Forbidden City
your majesty
may listen
to the raindrops
among cornices and brackets,
cadenzas on the colored tiles.
Under green slate,
thin streams
gurgle and whirl
by Wuying Palace,
by Wenyuan Chamber.
Water murmurs underground
like a buried dragon’s
beating pulse.
On rainy days
your majesty
may chant
your own imperial poems.
Floods crest in far off places.
Floods crest in far off places.
Mountain cities, stairways
drown in the riptide.
Ordinary people
pole their boats by Jing Mountain on the Han.
If rain keeps up
in the Forbidden City,
your majesty
may admire the sight
of a thousand one hundred forty-two
delicately carved hornless dragon heads
embracing the Hall of Supreme Harmony,
the Hall of Central Harmony,
the Hall of Preserved Harmony,
watch them spit out
torrential flying spring.
Beholding this
exquisite great fountain,
your majesty,
do you feel agreeable?
Big rivers surge in far off places.
Big rivers surge in far off places.
River water flows backward
to Bashu.
On the Longyang Gorge
waves rise up.
Heavy rain
in the Forbidden City
is no more than
a strangely sheer landscape.
Rainwater complies
with the forbidden palace’s topography:
higher in the north, lower in the south,
converging swiftly, branching
toward the Chamber of Spreading Righteousness, the Right-wing Gate,
toward the Chamber of Body Benevolence, the Left-wing Gate,
down the steps
through the arched hollows of the white-stone bridges,
pouring into the Inner Golden Water River,
the Tonghui River,
the Outer Golden Water River,
the Tongzi River.
The Forbidden City, enclosed by moats,
the one
and only place
on our whole nation’s map
that never sees
a flood.
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