"Frontier Juejus for Li Bai"

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Jueju (traditional Chinese: 絕句; simplified Chinese: 绝句; pinyin: juéjù), or Chinese quatrain, is a type of jintishi ("modern form poetry") that grew popular among Chinese poets in the Tang dynasty (618–907), although traceable to earlier origins. Jueju poems are always quatrains; or, more specifically, a matched pair of couplets, with each line consisting of five or seven syllables.[3] –Wikipedia

i.

Picture this: further frontier—

cliffs cleaving heaven in two.

Horse hooves once troubled this dust;

empire rose like wind, withdrew.

ii.

Beacon fires along the Wall

stitched smoke in the northern night.

Dynasties christened edge home;

exiles memorized its light.

iii.

Mulberry shade, river bend—

boys chanting from threadbound leaves.

Characters rank terraced fields,

ink outlives what time bereaves.

iv.

Thousand years ago, a man

drank himself straight into tide.

Moonlight shattered in his cup;

home spilled from his mouth and died.

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