{"id":1316,"date":"2017-01-23T08:00:25","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T15:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=1316"},"modified":"2017-01-23T13:43:30","modified_gmt":"2017-01-23T20:43:30","slug":"respect-by-mary-soon-lee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=1316","title":{"rendered":"Respect by Mary Soon Lee"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"354px-sun_quan_tang\"<\/p>\n

Cheong stood apart from the other mourners
\non the cropped grass inside the ring of graves.
\nA waste of his time,
\nwaiting for the two kings,
\nand Cheong too old to have much time
\nleft to waste.<\/p>\n

Seventy-seven sandstone slabs,
\neach garlanded with paper flowers,
\neach with a chiseled name.
\nThe seventy-eighth slab
\nvoid of flowers,
\nhis son’s name standing alone.<\/p>\n

Cheong had incised the name himself,
\nback in the spring,
\nthe fields ready for planting,
\nbut Cheong practicing
\non fragments of sandstone,
\nworking with hammer and chisel
\nuntil he was certain
\nhis hand would not slip,
\nthat each character would be properly formed.
\nApril when he’d chipped out the name.<\/p>\n

Fall now,
\nthe war over,
\na demon slain,
\nthough it hadn’t been a demon
\nthat killed his son,
\nbut men,
\nthe Red King’s men, raiding,
\nthe raid that started the war.<\/p>\n

A waste of Cheong’s time, waiting.
\nNo king, no gold, no paper flowers
\nof any use to his son.<\/p>\n

Cheong was contemplating leaving
\nwhen the two kings arrived,
\nbare-headed, white-robed,
\nwalking ahead of a company of soldiers.<\/p>\n

King Xau, Cheong’s king,
\nstopped at the far edge
\nof the ring of graves,
\nbowed three times to the mourners,
\nsaid, “We are sorry we failed you.”<\/p>\n

Not much of a speech,
\nbut the young king’s voice
\nhefted with loss.<\/p>\n

The other king, the Red King,
\nthe one whose soldiers
\nslaughtered Cheong’s son,
\nsaid nothing at all.<\/p>\n

King Xau went to the nearest grave,
\nread aloud the chiseled name,
\nbowed three times, very deeply,
\nsaid the name once more,
\nlooked to the Red King,
\nwho echoed the name.<\/p>\n

King Xau moved to the next grave,
\nread aloud the chiseled name.<\/p>\n

Men said that Xau slew the demon,
\nthat when the Red King saw him do so,
\nthen the Red King knelt to Xau
\nand pledged peace.
\nCheong old enough to remember eight wars.
\nWords as worthless as paper flowers.<\/p>\n

Xau came to Cheong’s son’s grave,
\nsaid the name aloud,
\nput his hand to the bare stone,
\ntouched each chiseled character.<\/p>\n

The king a white-robed blur.
\nCheong’s son dead.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Painting by Yen Li-Pen, from the Thirteen Emperors scroll in the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cheong stood apart from the other mourners on the cropped grass inside the ring of graves. A waste of his time, waiting for the two kings, and Cheong too old to have much time left to waste. Seventy-seven sandstone slabs, each garlanded with paper flowers, each with a chiseled name. The seventy-eighth slab void of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1316"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1327,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions\/1327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}