Tag: Gansu

Poetry by Patrick JenningsAug 7, 20227:00 am

Shadows

In the bright sun of day
I am shadow

A mask without a face
A smile without a reason
Laughter without glee

A sign of existence
Without presence

So I breathe
Bury my hand
In the hot sand

Shout out the pain
Of heat and grief
And emptiness

Give voice
To the being
Which once cast
The shadow

Until the voice
Becomes being
A vessel
For the light

The pain and grief
And emptiness
Become the shadow

Poetry by Patrick JenningsDec 28, 201810:23 am

Blackened Earth, Highway G215, Nearing Liuyuanzhen, Gansu Province, China

Rolling through the Ebony

Rolling through
A land of crushed ebony
Tarry asphalt dividing
The slender white lane markers
And scrubby tufts of amber

I scramble up an ebony mound
To find a landscape of ebony mounds
Growing to distant mountains
All of the same ebony skin

“At least,” I think, out loud
Into the air so dry
It swallows up the words
Right off my tongue
“the falling sun seems less
Like a fire
On a cast-iron skillet.”

Poetry by Patrick JenningsMar 29, 20188:05 am

Curious Young Monk, Lagrangsi Monastery, Xiahe, Gansu Province, China

Curiosity

Into the deepest shadows
I peer
Before entering

Initiate
Expectant
With trepidation

But driven
By curiosity
And possibility

Poetry by Patrick JenningsOct 16, 20171:44 pm

The Uncluttered I

I miss the desert
Its clarity
Its stillness
Its silent challenge

I miss the uncluttered I
Standing alone
In an expanse of sand

Poetry by Patrick JenningsJun 16, 20175:54 pm

On the road to Hami, from Liuyuan, Gansu -- Xinjiang, The Peoples Republic of China

Somewhere on the Way Through Nowhere

These roads through nowhere
Always find somewhere
Along the way

Because somewhere
Is always a state of mind

And my mind is always somewhere

Poetry by Patrick JenningsMay 25, 20167:23 pm

Abandoned

Abandoned
This old derelict building
And I

Two hundred kilometers
Away from
Anywhere

Nothing but gravel, rock
A winding strip of bitumen
And heat

Poetry by Patrick JenningsJan 11, 20166:45 pm

Ming Dynasty Great Wall, Jiayuguan, Gansu Province, The People's Republic of China

To ride

It’s a little like water skiing, slalom, on a lake of glass. The sand between scattered clumps of thorny, ground-hugging scrub. Tires floating. Subtle adjustments on the handlebars as the tail slides, as the bike leans and yaws, as the turn that will right it comes around, slowly, slowly. Pedaling, pedaling.

Poetry by Patrick JenningsDec 31, 20154:28 pm