Don't Believe

I don’t believe.

I don't believe in my heart,

yet it keeps beating.

I don’t believe in my hand,

yet it stirs honey into tea

and washes my grandmother's cup.

I don’t believe in the taste

of an heirloom pear

from a tree my father planted,

it is so sweet.

I gristle my fist around his original hoe,

and learn silent bending

from a gracious willow

without believing anything.

I don't believe in the hummingbird

asleep on a lilac twig, head cradled

on her own emerald breast.

Or in the silken cat slipping

through her element of moonbeams.

I don't believe in your eyes,

yet their gaze obliterates
my confusion.

Empty of every belief,

I can listen to the sound

of falling stars in my body,

like snow, God’s breath

brushing the alter of my breastbone.



Ink painting after Zhao Shao'ang, Sparrows in Snow