The Hall of Wisdom

And so I sit, at long last,

weary from climbing high walls

and treading forbidden streets,

where ancient sternness gives way

to vulgar parades of hungry wonder

and whose corridors,  now

faded in color and dusty in guise,

lead me lonely and alone

into the trappings of

thieves, whose cut-throat

knives gleam in the red flames

of want, beneath the eaves of

The Hall of Wisdom, doors barred

and quiet, I am too early or too

late.  But I wait.

[written at 北海 in Beijing, 2011]