Shuyi Yin

Earth Time

by Shuyi Yin

The gaze of the moan birds flare

through shadows of godless moonlight.

A tortoise carrying his black and yellow shell

hears the summon from the sea waves

and crawls slowly across the midsummer

grass with its one thousand years'

practice of asceticism.

A cliff awaits.

Drops of lavender oil

trickle down into the sea, as it stretches

of canvas, unbreathable.

Underneath lives a jellyfish called Lonesome Tom.

He has no eyes, no ears, mouth, heart or brain.

No bones, no spine. He never feels lonely.

Yesterday, he paved his floors with gold

and drank a bottle of vodka,

then went to a funeral of red sea urchins

like the one two hundred years ago—

Koi Hanako's.

She once had a room carpeted

with screaming light.

An owl picks up salt and stone from the seabed,

pecks a robin’s eggs, enters the bellies of the ducks,

digs deep into the marrow of the dragonfly.