For a traveling sister writer, I read four fine poems at the International Poetry Festival today. The other poets had gift and talent, wit and sharp vision. The last poet in our panel, currently a professor at Evergreen in Washington State, was from China. Her feet were slender in trim dark boots, her fingers long and articulate. She wore an embroidered brocade blouse with Mandarin collar, slacks and a jacket. She spoke of the light from the gold and green stained glass above the podium, how it had formed a halo above each of the poets who preceded her. She read in a Chinese dialect a section from her long work, and the moderator read the English translation, then she’d read another section, back and forth. Her work spoke of birds, the vowels of their poetry, of pianos and rivers.

She stood to one side, with angular stance, cornered shoulders. As the English version was read, she’d bend her head with concentration or feeling, her face draped by loose dark hair.

As we emptied the room, she collected her bag and papers from her seat in front of me, and I said I enjoyed her reading, that I liked the line that tears are of the same composition as the ocean. She said that is a scientific fact. Then, she looked at me and said: We are all fish.