What are we doing, blooming / For these old alcoholics?
                                                                                                — Liu Yu-hsi
I find nothing to do
And fall asleep under the sun
Near my wife’s peony beds.
Every day the clematis climbs
The small trellis. My wineglass is raised
To the clematis, diligence born from the seed.
It’s clear that I will never be chosen
To head the list of anything of merit.
My neighbors must gossip
About my laziness and my wobbling:
“Look at that old man back there,
Asleep and in bare feet.”