China’s history has five thousand years.
I’ve met three poets from two T’ang centuries,
still words transmuted into rushing English.

All I’ve really found’s my ignorance,
not just of province names and geography,
but of their photo ordinary, to me exotic, moments.

And if the future foreign people look back to our now,
will they use their times’ conceits
to misunderstand our misconsidered hopes?

Bollox to living in history, its canine worry.
Listen. Balance. Write, write.
Be.