Spending the Night in the Chancellery in Spring
Flowers grow shadowy, palace side-walls turn dusk,
the birds pass twittering by to roost.
Stars stir, looking down on these ten thousand doors,
the moonlight much, beside clouds’ highest tiers.
Not sleeping, I listen for the metal keys,
by the wind I imagine the jade horse bangles.
At dawn court I have a sealed document to present
and often ask: what time of night is it?