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             Zhèngzài

I pause now, on the mountainside,
          to add these lines
To those inscribed by others. Wide,
          the gulfs of time  

Between us, yet the paths we chose
          still brought us here.
Far down the river, early snow
          falls through the sheer

Defiles and cliffs. A flight of birds
          has lost its way.
The rock face where I scratch these words
          is streaked with gray.

正在

正在 Zhèngzài, a mandarin word means just at (that time) or right in (that place) or right in the middle of (doing something).

(First published in Indiana Voice Journal)

Jared Carter’s most recent collection, The Land Itself, is from Monongahela Books in West Virginia. His Darkened Rooms of Summer: New and Selected Poems, with an introduction by Ted Kooser, was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2014. A recipient of several literary awards and fellowships, Carter is from the state of Indiana in the U.S.

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