TEA TREES WAIT

The rock face is a drum

these fallen leaves cymbals

Halfway to the mountain

the traveler stops, hearing water

play violin,

asks guidance from the jostling clouds,

from the steep and rugged road

The blue mountain seems so close

yet more green hills

still ahead

Maybe shout to a distant figure

but wind says ask the forest of bamboo

Instead of smudged directions

rain says the waterfall

may know where

Birds sing eagerly

while someplace on these wild slopes

a man lives like a tea plant,

his small wooden cottage

half-hidden in leaves

Green falls and rises,

then dogbarks,

and in the drizzle

tea-man shakes his head

not yet