from where we all sit
home late after a night spent
with wine and old friends,
city dust on my boots.
reading Su Tung-p’o before bed.
where the river broadens, mountains part …
a small bridge … a fishing boat,
one speck where the river swallows the sky.*
this vision, from a thousand years past, now
falling heavy on my heart,
these old Chinese poems, with their tea and peonies,
calling down across the folded centuries.
and from my kitchen window
I see jets approach O’Hare,
one after another,
their lights a river in the sky.
* from ‘Above the River, Heavy on the Heart’, trans. by Burton Watson
.
cloudburst
early in the morning
a thunderstorm arrived
and with it
lust, which took me by surprise
I reached across the bed
to find you
still beside me
awake and listening to the rain
© Fritz Eifrig
Fritz Eifrig has been writing poems on and off for forty years. His work has appeared in Olney Magazine, Blue River, and the Hiram Review of Poetry. His self-published chapbook, familiar dark, is available at the Etsy shop, the Weeping Manatee. He lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.
The Loch Raven Review 