Plum rains won’t quench Lantan Lake

Plum rains won’t quench Lantan Lake,

But typhoons will work it out in this year of drought.

Incessant downpours will come so hard and long

That we will stay indoors,

Windows rattling, doors howling

So much so that Lantan’s waterline rings,

Like the age of a tree shaped vertically,

Will become a memory sliced perpendicularly.

As every inlet is covered over, beaches vanish.

As the lake gets bloated.

Spillway channel fills to the rim

Tumbling down the slope to the valley below

Viaduct useless for such spillage

Into Renyitan Reservoir haphazardly

Through a highway over the dam

Then randomly into Bazhang River wham bam!

Meandering water snake skirting Chiayi

Into the Taiwan’s Strait, like a tsunami.

Yes, that August deluge is hard to imagine

In the throes of water-rationed parched Formosa

One-hundred degree days of electrical strain

In the thick and thin of life’s vicissitude,

But those bends and growth signal change

The amazing landscape of long distance vistas

Alishan Mountain to the east, its crowning creation

Rippling green water coaxed by a windy hand

Tall bamboo drooping down to the forest shore

And when the rain finally comes,

I will be witness and recipient of the might

How the moon rises across the lake sky night

How the stars shine bright tinged in watery moonlight

The subtle mystery blinded by overexposed daylight

But with her night light, her mystery grows

Pulsar of hearts in faith in sync

Storm ridden outward we no longer wait to hear

Bamboo wind’s rubbing xylophone percussion

Echoing around its glistening surface gleaming

The surprise of nature’s passionate kiss

Into substantive bliss steaming

May 20, 2021

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