Pastoral

wolves of music weave their way at a run
hawthorns wheeze with clandestine laughter

turning a new leafe, tide's out
young ship-captains high up on balconies
look far away through telescopes

east and west
a single fruit cut into halves

beneath a tree grown from the pit I once spit out
I've hung nets
to trap bird, and waited how many years

Bei Dao, Forms of Distance, David Hinton (trad.), New Directions Books, 1994.