Poems by Shin Yu Pai

Sainte Terrer

The pale head of a freshly shaved monk
equipped with sunblock
extra shoelaces and begging bowl
thankful for all offered
tablescraps, carrottops
and the occasional dismembered finger
learning unattachment from a strict vegan diet.

On your left wrist a wooden mala
eighteen beads of sanded cedar on elastic cord
one hundred and eight incantations
of om mani padma hum
each bead a benefactor
who has sponsored a leg of the journey
from Boulder to Tassajara.

Roving about the countryside
as in the Middle Ages
on the pretense of traveling
a la Sainte Terre
the Holy Land.
Children called you "Sainte Terrer,"
Saunterer, or Holy-Lander
erasing your tracks in dust.

Peregrination
the migratory urge to be as birds
a practice centuries old
handed down from master to disciple
a genetic trace this compulsion
for flight.

An inability to remain quietly in a room
why you are compelled in movement
the continuum of ancestors and totems
the walking details of earth -
If you don't like to step on thorns and rocks
as you walk around the planet
you can pave the entire earth with shoe leather
or you can make a pair of sandals.

Pastorale

La dona y el cuchillero
share an agreement:
The kitchen knives swathed in cloth
she drops from the balcony

three flights to the street below.
The grate of metal against stone -
he rings the door
with newly sharpened knives

and receives an invitation to lunch.
A steaming cup of cachemai
concludes the repast,
served overlooking the busy square,

the Plaza de las Palomas,
where pigeons never discriminate -
old ladies offer linen kerchiefs
to soiled, indignant victimes

as foreigners peruse El Mundo
at the local newstand
longing for news from abroad
listening to the songs of the guitarmaker

at his shop the day long
sanding wood, shaping the body,
strumming,
He sings

Se ha llenado de luces
mi corazon de seda,
de campanas perdidas
de lirios y de abejas
y yo me ire muy lejos
mas alla de esas sierras,
mas alla de los mares