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Paint a Chinese poem
in horse-mane tossing,
dragon-kite flying,
seagull gliding strokes
on a scroll of raw silk,
and it is a thing of beauty.

Compose a Chinese poem
in tonal symmetry,
wit-soul brevity
and most sense read between lines,
precious and few,
and it is a work of art.

Declaim a Chinese poem
from a high tower on the Great Wall
to a thousand frontier guards,
who dream of their mistresses
in Nanking and Shanghai,
and it plucks a thousand strings.

Translate a Chinese poem
and print it in Roman characters,
bleed its calligraphy,
expose bare bones of platitude.
The buddleia has lost its scent;
the butterflies are dead.