You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain…I have a world apart that is not 
among men—Li Bai (701-762). “Popular legend says…[the poet] drowned when, 
sitting drunk in a boat, he tried to seize the moon’s reflection in the water.”
—Encyclopedia Britannica

Carefully he nears the little skiff at river’s edge.  
His steady scholar’s tread, a poet’s heartsick progress 
(mooning for the moon, no less) by one too poor 
to buy strong shoes. He moves his thin-boned, ill-clad feet 
away from peril by the water’s moonlight-wash. All while 
She is watching: Chang’e, Goddess of the moon and of his heart.  

He holds her as his patron. In his mind 
the big orb’s amber lovelight is her gift, 
lagniappe acknowledging his ardor and his genius. 
Not to mention his persistence. Many years 
he’s paid her court like this, saluting sky with cup   
as he boards the upturned prow, the boat 
a koi smile bobbing on the Yangtze. 

The little vessel takes right to the current. 
Tonight, he has a snootful (as on most nights),  
his mark of tradecraft: he hails his muse with spirits, 
oiling both devotion and his art. The claire de lune 
that bathes his feet and back, his dangling pigtail, 
is inspiration, manna, guiding light. 
             
He wished for flowing robes to wear, or ones 
that might have flowed if they’d had fewer patches  
and better laundering. An aging, wifelorn man, 
exiled from power. At least his graceful moustache  
and chin hair still gleam ink-black, pointing back 
at his reflection. He admires this, bowing to her
nearby in the water, almost within touch. 

Chang’e’s round cheeks beckon in the swirl. 
Does he, as the old tales say, incline 
in her direction, so recklessly in love  
(and compromised with alcohol), he misses 
the gunwale as he bends down to kiss her, 
and tumbles right on in, where sleepy catfish 
dandle in the blackness? 

Even in summer, imagine the ice-cold shock. 
The serpentine stranglehold of loose wet fabric, 
his animal panic. Think of the sudden sobering-up, 
retching, thrashing. Wouldn’t he have cried out, 
fought the clutch of raiment, freed himself 

and swum naked ashore 
to dance home in the moonlight, 
newly drunk on sudden second chances? 

Wouldn’t you?