I left reading The Book of Songs, compiled by Confucius,
On the wooden patio, its planters filled with small flowers
Bright purple, dainty white and purple, daisies, deep red
Like the Nature imagery structured through the Odes
Plum flowers, boughs with peaches, reeds picked by pools
On islands in the Yangtze River; measuring the hours of night
By the passing of stars through the sky, which places humans
In the still of Nature reverence, persisting yet from China’s antiquity
Driving away from the wooden patio, that June night when, at 9:30,
The sky was blue and in the west yellow-golden with the sun still up
The street’s blacktop clashed against the violet scent of lilac flowers;
Oaks decorated concrete sidewalks, rising steel and glass office buildings
Parking in a lot past downtown by the train tracks, I faced two billboards
Looked past the tilting chain-link fence to the clashing billboards—
The pinkish, tomato-soup orange Vizzy hard seltzer billboard against
The red CIBC Bank billboard, though some texts may call them
Complimentary colors, the pinkish, tomato-soup against red billboards
Eating my Quarter-Pounder, I couldn’t see the lady pick reeds by pools
Looking at the weeds, the tilting fences, the billboards by the parking lot
Facing the train tracks, nor at the municipal park, either, I drove to
And pulled over to let a screaming ambulance pass me, that had to cross
The centerline into oncoming traffic and a guy wouldn’t stop his car
To let the ambulance through, on my way; the municipal park circled
By a blacktop road, with pavilions and restrooms for picnickers
The stillness from Confucius’ Odes took me to the wooden patio,
The tiny flowers in the planters secluded by means of wooden planks
Composing the privacy fence—despite pink noise from the exhaust fan
Of the nearby brick restaurant—I picked reeds by pools with the lady
On an island surrounded by the rough Yangtze River, it was dark, now
David Fekete 