Near the Great East Gate

After a twelfth-century B.C. Chinese poem

Past East Gate
Young girls go
So many clouds
Like tumbling clouds
Thoughts blow away

There--white dress
Blue scarf
Thoughts stay.

Past Great Tower
Slender girls go
So many reeds
Like waving reeds
When wind blows by

There--white dress
Purple scarf;
Winds sigh.

-- Stephen K. Roney