Sean Wayman: ‘The Former Residence of Xue Fucheng Wuxi, China’

The Former Residence
of Xue Fucheng Wuxi, China

To reach the mansion’s modest entrance gate,
where tasselled lanterns hang like fuchsia blooms,
you have to wade a sea of toxic fumes,
where gloomy thoughts refuse to dissipate.

For those who’ve come across this sickly tide
the mansion’s gate assumes a welcome look.
Its narrowness suggests a cosy nook
in which to shelter from the smog outside.

But once you squeeze in through the entranceway
you soon reclaim a sense of open space.
Inside, the courtyard boasts an airy grace—
and bonsai gingko trees in pots of clay.

Grotesquely weathered, full of jagged holes,
a scholar’s rock enchants the pensive gaze.
Its tongueless contours speak of bygone days,
a time of cultivating noble souls.

And down the passageways which probe ahead
you’ll find the silence of ancestral halls,
where ink-brush paintings decorate the walls
and rows of spirit tablets mourn the dead.

But if you yearn to shelter in the past,
a late arrival in a…