Freek, George

George Freek

The Nearing Storm (after Tu Fu)

The wind whistles through
the trees like a piccolo.
But when it’s gone,
where does it go.
I walk through the graveyard,
placing fresh flowers
on my parents grave.
They are at rest
in their dreamless beds,
and I am sixty.
As I dwell on my life,
and the time I have left,
a storm arrives.
What good are regrets?
So I hurry home,
before I get wet.

At Dawn (After Ou Yang Hsiu)

Crows pick at rotting bones.
Skeletons stare eyelessly
at the desolate sky,
searching the distant stars,
where dreams reside.
But they see nothing,
through the endless hours.
In the frozen air, the crows
scatter like leaves,
seeking a place to hide.
Leaves fall everywhere.
The stars look down,
but not in prayer.
Life is uncertain,
those stars tell me,
and it is always unfair.

The Dead (After Mei Yao Chen)

As leaves fall from the trees,
a sultry breeze weakens
with the dying sun.
From where does it come?
A crow hovers over my head,
searching for carrion bones.
I walk the lake shore alone.
I walk like a man made of stone.
If she were alive, my wife
would walk by my side.
My thoughts are disconnected.
They scatter in the wind,
like grains of sand.
The leaves fall at my feet.
And tonight they
will deepen when I sleep.

The Moon Is in the River of Heaven
(After Mei Yao Chen)

I hear my wife cough.
She has coughed for months.
She refuses her breakfast.
She eats weak soup at lunch.
Her face is thin as paper.
Her arms are like chicken bones.
At night, she tries to muffle
her terrifying groans.
She was once young.
In a bag of wrinkled skin,
I look for the beautiful girl
I married long ago.
Winter is coming.
I watch a squirrel gather
nuts from a pine tree.
I feel too empty for grief.
I despair for my wife,
But my sorrow is also for me.

A Poem About Nothing
(After Su Tung Po)

The sparrow builds a nest,
but the wren sleeps in it.
The world’s a nasty place,
even for the human race.
Stars dance on a December night,
But December winds
nose through the streets
like hungry swine,
searching for scraps to eat.
Half drunk, I watch
from my doorway. The moon
goes up like a curtain
on a play. The show
is old and stale. The end
is predetermined.
But I’m unable to turn away.

Mourning (After Ou Yang Hsiu)

Leaves are blown by the wind.
They fall blindly.
They’re blown from my
sight and from my mind.
Each is a tiny death,
which blows away to join
others of its kind.
The night is starry-eyed.
It’s as long as the black sky.
The moon hides.
The clouds close their eyes,
like women at prayer,
who think nothing of me,
when they drift by.

George Freek's profile

The Lark Falling (after Li Po)

I barely know in this pile
of rotting flesh and bones,
that blithe lark, ascending,
as if straining to reach the sun.
I tried and lost. His carcass
seems to say.
My race has been run.
What was he hoping for,
I wonder. Was he simply young?
He hadn’t yet learned,
the race is over
before it’s even begun.
Did he dream of those
miraculous clouds in the sky?
Did he learn they were vapor,
and vanished like a morning mist?
And so he quit.
Did disillusion kill him,
as it will you and I?
I look at the budding peonies
in my garden, how slow in
arriving, and how soon they die.

Night Descends (after Chu Hsi)

Snow drifts in the air
like a white fog.
Summer has now come
and gone. I know
life will survive.
New flowers will arrive.
Ice will disappear,
and the river will flow.
But I read the future
in the distant stars.
They cannot light
this harsh night.
Leafless trees are like
dead friends. They speak
of what was, or
what might have been.

A Poem is All One Has
(After Mei Yao Chen)

Night unfolds like a skein
of silk. But its beauty
brings me no relief.
My troubles are mine alone.
The moon feels no grief.
The stars are so far away,
They can give no
warmth or compassion.
They exist in another dimension.
I understand death
when we are old and lame.
When the young die,
there’s only God to blame.
My wife was only forty.
I stare at the distant stars.
What good does it do
to curse the empty air,
when no one is there.

The Frozen Darkness
(After Tu Fu)

The clouds disturb my mind.
As I walk in their shadow,
they absorb the light.
Their dialogue is with the night.
The moon appears in solitude.
I know nothing of what it thinks.
Perhaps it has nothing to say,
and will simply go away.
Crows curse the sky,
Nothing replies. I think
my life has been wasted.
But to whom should I apologize?

Poem (After Li Po)

In the twilight, an icy rain
is like silken needles.
Finally, snow starts piling up,
and I’m unable to sleep.
My bed is cold.
All night ice cracks
on the roof and in the eaves.
Wind tosses the last
of November’s leaves.
All birds have departed.
I reach for the light,
but can no longer write.
My poems no longer bite.
Who reads poetry today?
Young men with
unreal dreams and old
fools like me,
with nothing left to say.