Five Poems
AFTER HAN SHAN
In this life people come and go.
Yesterday I was twenty-one—
Sassy, strong, full of energy.
Now, nearly seventy, strength
Gone, my body diminished.
A mushroom in autumn
Blossoms at dawn—
Only to wither by night.
FOR KIM
I lie in bed reading poetry—
In the living room you sing
In a language I do not understand.
We have chosen to grow old together
And follow where the Way leads.
Each of us far from our origins,
Uncertain of what’s ahead.
Come, the quilt is warm.
And sleep will be sweet.
WE THE LIVING
We the living are on our way.
The dead—already home.
They say to walk beneath heaven
Is to suffer here on earth
We drag our feet
And have no say in the matter.
Those who’ve come before,
And those yet to come—
What keeps us all here?
THINKING OF MY FRIEND LU XI
Smell of garlic and olive oil
Fills the kitchen.
Pasta boils on the stove.
Evening arrives.
The sky wants to snow.
Where are you
My friend Lu Xi?
AFTER TU FU for DAN BOUCHARD
Marsh grass bows in the breeze.
A slow boat drones on the river.
The moon rises to a first star.
How could writing
Ever lead to anything?
I quit my job
Due to illness and old age
Alone in air pockets
A gull between heaven and earth,
Uncertain the way home.
Joseph Torra
Boston native Joseph Torra is a poet, memoirist, and novelist. He is the author of numerous books including Time Being, After the Chinese, My Ground Trilogy, and Who Do You Think You Are?
Paige Turner-Uribe
Paige Turner-Uribe paints atmospheric scenes with open-ended narratives, which are both familiar and mysterious at the same time. Her work explores the sublime and the uncanny in ordinary life and the way light and color convey feeling and mood. The paintings consist of layers of oil on canvas gradually built up and wiped away and reapplied until the image is resolved in a luminous surface that is both representational and abstract. Her work exists in a space of reverie where in-between moments reveal themselves in an iridescent haze contemplating the beauty and tragedy of the urban landscape and quiet domestic moments. The varying yet interconnected subjects move together cinematically like stills from an ongoing film. She earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in painting and printmaking from San Diego State University, and has participated in numerous exhibitions including with Ochi Gallery, Massey Klein Gallery, Mindy Solomon Gallery, and the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. She lives and works in Los Angeles, California.