Unspoken Word - New and Ancient Paths

Dear Friends,

During three years of the pandemic, many of you whom I have never met sent poetry to me for publication in Unspoken Word - Thoughts from Writers and Poets Virtually Connected in the Apocalypse. We became friends unencumbered by our bodies. There is something singularly intimate about sitting alone with a cup of tea and reading a poem by someone you’ve never met faraway. Even as a child, my closest friends were poets I knew only through their writing. I found my first love, Jose Marti, in a book of poems and have remained faithful to him ever since in my own fashion. Time and space mean nothing to a poet. In 2021 I collaborated with Wenting Zhang on a “Community Poetry and Tea” for Tea Arts and Culture. Ting conducted a tea ceremony and I led a haiku writing. We are bonded by this natural connection between tea and poetry. I published some of the poems from people who participated. The tea community became part of the Unspoken Word community that day and vice versa ever since then. Now I would like to invite all of you and new friends to share your poems here with us in the Tea Arts and Culture newsletter. We value your thoughts. We honor your funniness, your compassion, your commitment to the truth, and your courage. We do not expect each other to think the same, but we do count on each other to think. Included here today are two poems from people I have never met in New Mexico, and one poem in two languages, from a friend who recently went home to China.

Thank you Dick, Lingping, and Kathamann.

Deep bows to all of you,

Robin Lampman

After the Party

When the party’s over
go home
and have a cup of tea
in the silent night.

 Think
Tea is tea and nothing more
A promise that keeps itself.

 Think
I am me
One small universe
within the universe.

- Robin Lampman

Saying Goodbye to Long Island in Two Languages 

We were driving, yearning for Long Island.
We didn’t go to the windy shore,
We stayed in the shade of the forest.
I heard peafowls and parrots, cheerful with sweet songs.

Ah! yearning for Long Island, yet
I will leave.
Unfortunately, my arms couldn’t hold you.
As you disappeared from my sight,
My heart hurt.
It will be hard to heal.

Ah! yearning for Long Island
I will come back
And just appreciate the snowflakes
Falling on every treetop.
The breeze will slowly move
Like a mother stroking her child
And the snow will fall.
Everything will be so magical,
just right,
And flaws will be nowhere to be found.
You will leave only snow behind.

I didn’t take anything from you.
I left only my footprints.
Maybe one day, I will come back and find
My footprints.

- Lingping Chen

再别长岛

我们疾驶在向往的长岛。
虽然已不去狂风怒啸的海边，
却停留在了树荫弥漫的森林。
只听孔雀和鹦鹉在欢乐的鸣叫。
给人片刻的寂静
来享受美好的自然。

啊！向往的长岛,
我将要离开。
只可惜我的双臂无法挽留你，
任你从我的眼前消失。
让心的寂痛难以湮灭。

啊！向往的长岛，
我还会回来。
只是欣赏雪花飘落
在每一个树梢。
微风徐徐，
像一个母亲抚摸孩子一般
让雪花自由自在的飞翔。

向往的长岛，
你的一切是那么的神奇，
但又恰到好处
瑕疵无处可寻。
只留下长岛的雪
让人有了憧憬和汹涌澎湃的渴望。

我带不走你的任何东西，
但我把足迹
遗留在这里。
某天我将会回来找寻我的足迹
和我的那个她。

- 陈灵平

In the Seam Between Night and Day

Northern New Mexico 

Outgoing tide of dream – incoming waves
of dawn – earth’s curving shadow slips down
Jemez peaks to the west – Rio Grande’s valley
rubs its eyes – a dozen Pueblos stretch to the sky –
sun yawns over Rowe Mesa to the east –
Galisteo Basin’s spiny tails of rock tremble
as if in a quake – walkway’s pebbles shiver
with dew – Santa Fe’s New Mexican lies
impatient to be opened at breakfast – coyotes
snicker outside the bedroom window –
bobcats tip-toe nearby – clouds argue with winds – bees mumble grouchily for Russian Sage to heat up
its nectarous tea– red-headed house finches
beak their little ones to get ready for school –
black beetles stagger back after a night
carousing on the other side of the street –
gopher snakes unfurl – inch by inch – their  
six feet of languor – owls tuck themselves
in for a day of night under a downy wing –
high desert’s plain rumbles with weary
thunder – and every creature within hearing
recognizes the old tired feeling – all sound –
and rain’s fury that decides to sleep in

- Dick

Hard Solve.

An age of dizzy dimensions
with stories of everything thought
almost hypnotic with years
of strange waiting
searching for landscapes
without loss lasting after death.
Stanzas to tell the toxic use
of reason and comfort.
Stripping the physical
from the brass ring.
The hard side of another identity
is far from center.
Mundane solutions pale
from the usual.
The original farm is fast
in humidity.

-  Kathamann