PARTRIDGE SKY

Written unrhymed for the Chinese

historical phonologist Jerry Lee Norman

In the heat, red cotton tree blossoms

open and fall. Ghost flowers

linger in the boughs, hinting at the yao,

an arrow racing toward emptiness,

beyond all sounds, shapes, the forms

of wind, rain, tracks of tigers,

leopards, shadows of mythic beasts.

A partridge skims a hibiscus,

sees a parapet mirrored in a river,

soars high, dips low,

crosses water, then towers,

merging with the color of the sky.