Echoes


Crepuscule

Like the patter of rain on the crisp leaves of autumn
are the tiny footfalls of the fox-maidens.


Festival of the Dragon Boats

On the fifth day of the fifth month the statesman Küh
Yuen drowned himself in the river Mih-lo.
Since then twenty-three centuries have passed, and the
mountains wear away.
Yet every year, on the fifth day of the fifth month,
the great Dragon Boats, gay with flags and gongs,
search diligently in the streams of the Empire
for the body of Küh Yuen.


Kang Yi

When Kang Yi had been long dead the Empress decreed
upon him posthumous decapitation, so that
he walks for ever disgraced among the shades.