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"The family is gone forever."

"Thirteen Poems from My Southern Garden

6
Seeking a style, culling my phrases,
Grown old carving grubs!
At dawn the moon hangs in my blinds,
A bow of jade.
Can't you see what is going on, year after year,
By the sea of Liao-dong?
Whatever can a writer do
But weep in the autumn wind?"

--Goddesses, Ghosts, and Demons: The Collected Poems of Li He (tr J D Frodsham, 1988)

The difficulties in using a form like the ghazal in English. With my afterthoughts at greater length.

" 'Things are bad, but they are not so bad!'

I don’t know, we’re in the middle of the sixth mass extinction and we’re watching it live, casually sipping on mojitos."

--@jgiraffekennedy.bsky.social

"This is what happens when belonging is treated like a privilege instead of a right."