The afternoon digresses into evening,
autumn into snow.
Tu Fu and Li Po met, and then they parted,
and who’s to say which day was their digression?
Such poems of departure are not possible today:
we sail forward and fly back like a loving pair
of purple mandarin ducks.
Who leaves for the mountains and never comes back?
No one I know. I turned on the television
and there was a man on channel two
talking about perfume.
A man on channel three was lost in the mountains
and his dog kept smelling things.
After that I went over to the window
and was surprised to see it was light.
I thought of sleep, a major digression.
But I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking
about that man on the mountain.
After he made that movie I’m sure
he went home and made love to his wife.
And then maybe he ate some eggs.
But it breaks my heart to think
he is bound to lose the thread entirely,
eventually.