It is time
We stand like children
On the silent beach
And calmly wait for the moon
Nothing has been lost on the moon today
A banana kazoo
Sucked between the lips of night
Is no longer blowing out of tune
Crisscrossed boughs set up an easel
The moon wearing a pure white suncap
Slowly comes over like a shy boy
Holding a transparent nylon net
With which to scavenge the ocean
Of it’s many broken hearts
Bobbing on the sea to the horizon
~ translated by Edward Morin and Dennis Ding, from This Same Sky,
Selected by Naomi Shihab Nye (Aladdin Paperbacks, 1996
