146. 端午节

Triangles,
banana leaves
wrapped tight
around the
rice and
crunchy egg
yolk:

Drawing no initial parallels
with the
colouring books I
scribbled in as a
child
while
the teams of
rowers
plunged their oars
into the
dragon-mirrored
waters –

Ma
tells me
a poet once
drowned out of
the misery of
exile

and that villagers
filled the lake
with these
triangles
out of
sympathy –

the fish kept away
and the body was
saved;

And on this
strange-appointed
day
I ponder,
perhaps too
much of
such tales.