Hello Gary,
           Thanks, first, for your clarification of my queries about the last poem in this poem. Again, I like the tone and atmosphere of this piece. And again, I have a few queries. I felt that the qualification of the word `empty´ which begins in line 4 was rather separated from the first appearance of the word in line 1. Two items of information intervene - the visual description and the uncertainty as to species - and I wonder if this brreaks the flow one would expect between lines 1 and 4. Also, I wonder whether line 3 is needed, but as before, there may be a reason why the inability to identify the species has significance and I´ve just missed it. If line 3 could go, though, then lines 1 and 2 could be reversed, bthereby bringing `empty´ and its qualification together. Having said that, I was also puzzled about the very use of `empty´. A tower, posts and pole might well appear in an `empty´ landscape, but when houses and trailers are present, and presumably in sufficient quantities to justify their presence being described as a `march´, then it seems to me that the landscape is no longer `empty´. Another point I wondered about is really the same thing three times over - the references to precise species. In S2 line 2, why are turkey buzzards the only other species that would be able to see the prey? Wouldn´t an eagle be able to see it? And again, do we need to know that the narrator is unable to distinguish hawk, falcon and kite. Ditto the wasps and hornets. These three queries are really the same as my question about S1 line 3, of course and the recurrence of the same feature does rather lead me to suspect that this is deliberate and I´m missing something (Oh, how many times have I written those words!?) Finally, I wondered why you chose to use `remnants´ in the final couplet rather than the more expected `remains´....not that there´s anything wrong with the unexpected.
Anyway, these were the things that struck me. I hope this is useful.




Best wishes,   Mike



 > 

> 
> (Number eleven in a series of transformations of Wang Wei's River Wang 
> poems.)
> 
> A River Transformed XI:  After Wang Wei's Huazi Ridge (2)
> 
> Between Ridges, Canyons
> 
> A raptor soars above empty lands,
> a speck against the clear desert sky,
> species unidentifiable -
> empty except for tower, post and pole
> along distant ridges and the march
> of house and trailer up ever steeper slopes.
> 
> The bird, unfettered, dives towards prey
> only he and turkey buzzards can see.
> I watch, uncertain of the difference
> between hawk, falcon and kite.
> Our lunch sits untouched, the iced tea
> visited by hornets - or is it wasps?
> 
> Magpies squabble over the remnants
> of a dead crow in a broken fire ant nest.
> 
> 
> The literal translation from a web site:
> 
> Fly bird go no limit
> Join mountain again autumn colour
> Up down Huazi Ridge
> Melancholy feeling what extreme
> 
> http://www.chinese-poems.com/ww2.html
> 
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>