Poem: The Door Held Open, April 2023

Along a mossy-quiet path—the memory

of water, jade-tinkling, carried within the soil—

on padded feet the apparition silently,

by guiding moonlight, came upon

a henge. A coil

of incense, partly burned, came into view beneath

a scholar’s stone. Closer now, other shapes began

to materialize, tall, pale, jutting like teeth;

porous taihu all, and each two meters in span.

Visible now within the central clearing stood

a monolithic nephrite pillar, smooth, apart

from a chest-height trapezoidal window that could

have been hurriedly chiseled out—a missing heart.

In this prominent position it seemed to hold

a function most ritualistic indeed, as of

an altar. To what dark domain,

what god of old,

would be consecrated the space hereinabove?

What off’rings placed upon its shelf? And why the green

gem? What dissolution pitting created this

rough-carved hole amongst these children of karst, unseen

but keenly felt, a monument to the abyss?

April 2023 Erin Rehil

Photo courtesy of the artist. Taken November 3, 2018, Nan Lian Gardens, Kowloon, Hong Kong.