Heading East… Way East… To Shanghai

Alex and Maily are moving to China… on Monday… So I guess the population of China will be 1.3 billion plus 2.  Maily is leaving a law practice in Los Angeles.  Alex will be brightening Asia for Tom’s Shoes. I’m betting they both will grow to like the poetry of Eighth Century poet Li Po, sometimes known as Li Bai.  Li Po is one of those poets, like Shakespeare, whom I would very much have liked to know in friendship.  There are questions I would like to ask.  His poetry touches me. I especially like the legend about his death.  It is said that he drowned when he reached from his boat to grasp the moon’s reflection in the river. I went to Yellow Crane Tower once because I wanted to see if I could feel the “something” the poet felt when he was there. Perhaps my friend Alex will go to the tower and feel it and then tell me about it when I see him again.

My old friends said goodbye to the west, here at Yellow Crane Tower,

In the third month’s cloud of willow blossoms, he’s going down to Yangzhou.

The lonely said is a distant shadow, on the edge of a blue emptiness,

All I see is the Yangtze River flow to the far horizon.

—Li Po