You talked in mellow day-ends
as the rallying sun
spread quivering spokes of gold
like an iridescent fan behind the pagodas,
and smells of bamboo shoots cooked in spices
drifted out of the blown fires.

You pitted your words against the world of princes,
but softly, in even tones, and few listened…
so that you were not nailed on four boards
nor smeared with honey and left naked
where sands crawl living under the sun.

Perhaps only a few boys listened
while the rice was cooling in the bowls
and auburn sunsets
changing into lavender and jade
shuffled into the lilac dusks.
A few boys listen always when one gives out of his silence.

I do not think there were girls who listened…
girls…whose lustrous pale skins
threw back in dusky echoes
the faint gold light of evening
that loitered with silken slippers upon the pinnacles.

Not so could you have touched their deep quietness,
incomprehensible, moving darkly
under the froth of little words
and the soft purling of their blood
that perhaps sang to meet your blood…
you passed them all unknowing
while the light on the horizon was like a topaz wine.

Did women—scattering dry words
as trees dead leaves,
that are no more communicants of the green sap—
women with shining secrets in their eyes…
alertly curious eyes
not baffled because not wondering…
catch a garbled word or so
and mutely
quiver along the margins of their silences?

Not again, Mo-ti,
when heated days turn yellow at the edges,
and the sun comes down like a peacock to drink out of the
        rivers,
will lemon-pale boys,
pressed against the narrow darkness of their eyes
bring to you their spindling hungers…
(what becomes of all the boys who have touched silence for a
        white shaken moment…
does the shy wild light that cones into their eyes
there beat itself out like a too long shut-in thing?)
I do not know if they talked with you in those gone saffron
        twilights.
Only your
words have floated out of the night,
   enfolding them and you in its seamless shadow…
words still seeking in vain noise
for some green hush to rest upon…
words carrying light like sunsets upon wings.

*MO-TI - c.472 - c.391 BC - Chinese Philosopher
Mo-ti, or Mo-tzu, was a Chinese philosopher whose doctrine of universal love challenged Confucianism for a considerable time
during China's history. Mo-ti was first a Confucianist but became increasingly attracted for a life of simplicity. His ideas challenged
 the special claims of parental authority. Mo-ti developed the idea of an utopian state, and he also introduced logical systems into 
Chinese philosophy. He was a philosopher who lived in China during the Hundred Schools of Thought period (early Warring States 
Period). He founded the school of Mohism and argued strongly against Confucianism and Taoism. During the Warring States Period, 
Mohism was actively developed and practiced in many states, but fell out of favour when the legalist Ch'in Dynasty came to power. 
During that period many Mohist classics were ruined when Shi Huang-ti carried out the burning of books and burying of scholars. 
The importance of Mohism further declined when Confucianism became the dominant school of thought during the Han Dynasty, 
disappearing by the middle of the Western Han Dynasty.