The Artist

I am no artist but in bed
I can paint with my fingertip
your breast, your mouth and cheeks,
and surely your crooked smile
that floats around
your eyebrows as you sleep.

When the neighbors are gone
and even the cricket quiet
I am still to shy to sing
the songs you taught me
to the sleeping cat.

I am not a poet but I can describe
your glance, your voice,
the way you walk in the garden
before coming to bed,
even each separate pebble
on the path that runs
the twenty steps from here to there.

Han Yongwun (1879 – 1944)

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