A Reply Sent To The River-Merchant's Wife Poem by Dennis Ryan

August 20,2004

"If you are coming down through the narrows of the River Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
and I will come out to meet you
as far as Cho-fu-Sa."
- Ezra Pound, "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter"


I received your letter,
and though it lifted my heart,
I had little time to reply—
a new rogue army was burning
village after village as it passed
through the neighboring countryside.
Yes, it was late September—
the fallen leaves commingling
browns and yellows under angry,
gray skies.And reds, different hues
of red flaring across fields and hillsides
everywhere.I was afraid to join the wrens,
perched as they were on fragile branches,
was conscripted, sent down river to fight
again and again.That was a few years ago.
My reply now grows yellow, a butterfly
shedding its dusky colors on rice paper.
Please forgive it, its late arrival, now
fluttering over the West garden grass,
still dreaming of reunion at Cho-fu-Sa.