Heaven and earth lack benevolence—
they treat the ten thousand things like straw dogs
As the poet, too, lacking benevolence
perfected in the way with ears keenly tuned
treats the ten thousand things like straw dogs
Straw dogs being offerings to the gods
prepared with reverence and mindfulness
Once the occasion has ended, they’re tossed
into the street, trampled beneath passing feet
Indeed, the space between heaven and earth
is like a bellows—empty but inexhaustible
the more taken in the more comes into being
More and more words wholly exhausted
So much the better to observe emptiness
from which flows forth al-nafas al-rahmaniy
“the breath of the Merciful,” Nature’s being
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Excerpt from “Langkasuka” from Line and Light. Copyright © 2022 by Jeffrey Yang. Used with the permission of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.
Jeffrey Yang
Jeffrey Yang is the author of four poetry collections, including Hey, Marfa, winner of the Southwest Book Award, and An Aquarium, winner of the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award. He is the translator of Liu Xiaobo’s June Fourth Elegies.
