National Poetry Month: David Rattray

"A red-framed print of the Summer Palace"

(David Rattray)

My mother died in her bed

one balmy night in May, 1974;

my hair wasn't yet gray.

At the head of the bed

was a red-framed print

of the Summer Palace near Peking

in salmon pink and tea green

over a lake with a little stream launch

and a bridge

to an island in the foreground.

She'd been there as a girl

and for 50 years later

dreamt of it

only to awake

in tears at not returning

to the summer palace of youth.

In her will she left me the picture --

it's on my study wall.

Last year a Sinologist came by, and I learned 

the bridge   

is incorrectly rendered.

There are in fact

17 arches, not 14 as shown.

Also, there are errors in perspective

and the Chinese writing in the clouds

over the lake

is cut and dried description, 

not the poetry I'd hoped.

"A red-framed print of the Summer Palace" by David Rattray (1958-1993) appeared in Sulfur #3, 1982. His translations included work by the 20th-century French writers Antonin Artaud and Rene Crevel; he published a book of collected stories and essays, How I Became One of the Invisible and a poetry collection, Opening the Eyelid (1990). He died unexpectedly of a brain tumor at the age of 57. (Photo of David Rattray by Ira Cohen.)