My dear friend nowhere in sight
This Han River keeps flowing east
                             – Wang Wēi, ‘Mourning Meng Hao-Jan’

1.

My dear friend, where are you now?
Nowhere in sight, not in your half-glasses,
nor turning a page, nor looking askance.

The right bus turns the corner and you get on,
and that’s not to be seen again either,
nor your shopper’s eye for rabbit-meat or veg.

The sands of Ynyslas, the tides of Forth,
stretch and flow, west and east.
Their inks touch-in the sky but show nothing.


2.

My dear friend, where are you now?
No sight nor sound, no hide nor hair,
nothing but imagined conversation.

A word on Vishnu of the thousand names perhaps –
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