Night Sounds

 

by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu, poem 26

I think they mean to torture me
with either silence, or sounds.
When my residence is empty
as I have no visitors at all,
the quiet of the courtyard
seems weirdly ominous.

It makes me hear
sounds no one wants,
such as the pounding
of laundry on cold stones.
Sometimes it is the wind,
which howls in this country
with unpleasant vowels.

Why are the nights so long?
Sleep is insufficient
to cover them.
Ears are worse than eyes
in a strange place.

Among the pines,
and worse, among
the rattling bamboo,
what creatures here
prowl nocturnally?

Sounds in the night
that enter my curtained
windows -- how many
belong to those
who watch and count
my every movement?

If I sound out a poem,
subversive and sad,
to whose ears
will they repeat it?