Raffel, Burton

English

University of New Mexico

New Mexico Quarterly
Volume 29 | Issue 4 Article 15
1959
A Tale for Cynthia
Burton Raffel
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Recommended Citation
Raffel, Burton. "A Tale for Cynthia." New Mexico Quarterly 29, 4 (1959). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmq/vol29/iss4/15
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A TALE FOR CYNTHIA
, 4
They said ofyoung Wang, when the Emperor's glove
Slappedacross his shoulderand in nineteen southern
Pro.vinces, unhappy sudders of bandits
And civil servants, men began to shave
Theirdaughters' heads and carry buried
Silver into the mountains, in terror ofwhat
Apoet could do if governors possessing no talent
Had left them only every othergrapeand taxed
Even the flowing of water-they said,
Where his poems were known, that Wang
Had too much thirst to drink from a slenderspring,
Meaning to say that poets who govern
Have shed the scholar's shabby robes
For the public lust that is everyman's pride.
Only the third of hisseven daughters,
Who slept next to his doorand wrote,
In the mornings, the dreams he had saved,
Could have told how every night's vision trembled in beauty
Of words no pen had ever conceived, brushed in wonder
Across unwinding scro11s his hands trembled
To touch, in the cold morning when courtiers
And beggars and eager officials already pu11ed
The brass and iron knocker pinned to his gate.
Only his wife, and later his six grown sons,
Could have told why Wang, governor of eighty
Provinces, honored with rice from the Emperor's bowl
And soon to be regent of China itself, boarded
Asampan and drifted like a lazy fish
Along the Ye110wRiver, co11ecting leaves
And burning his.face in the sun and staripg,
Unable to weep, at a chest of virgin parcliment
Hung beside his bed, unopened, unsoiled,
As ready to be enscribed with careful reports
As, five weeks before, when the porters carried it up . l><
From the dock and Wang, smilingand silent,
Fo11owed them like the tail of a dragon parade.
His daughter's record was found, a decade ag~,
Lininga box of tea; his wife's story
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Raffel: A Tale for Cynthia
Published by UNM Digital Repository, 1959
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425
Was whispered down ahundred years
And is worthy of even a critids belief.
His sons were honorable men, his daughters
Married well, and when Wang died, bearing
T!Ie crescent ruby ofsemi-godhead upbn his heart
And the crimson band of every poweraround
His wrist, the old professors were careful not to exhume
His youthful indiscretions, tIfe wild, inebriate
Poems theEmperor chose to,forgive.
Only his poems seem really dead, thrust
By timid hands beneath an unknown pile
Ofparchment, buried deep in the palace vaults.
I hope, someday, to find them,
Spread thrmlorall to read how W~g
Could rhym'e and sing with no-man's pride
And a heart so full that he needed neither court
Nor jewels nor the sacred scraps from the Living Moon God's plate.
-BURTON.1U.FFEL
INTERNATIONAL GEOPHYSICAL YEAR
I
We harness this year
The galactic simoons of space ...
.In,forge of our hydrogen and shrapnel success
We seaBold manned bullets:
Challenge to,much fabled and fictive discs.
Peace beyond reach,
We infringe the firmament We
The foragers,
Cradled by such ourspeeded funeral We'll
Land our shells
Abreach the aerie esplanades:
Take heed our threats! savannahs of the moon.
2
New Mexico Quarterly, Vol. 29 [1959], Iss. 4, Art. 15
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmq/vol29/iss4/15


A Tale for Cynthia

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A Tale for Cynthia

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