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This poem I wrote this morning. I read the bio of an AD author, crystalwizard, and, being a great Gandalf and Professor Tolkien fan, and, being in China, I decided to write something quickly off-the-silk-robe-cuff.

Li Bai has formerly been known to us Westerners as Li Po.

As I say, it's a rough sketch, a harp improvisation, so I won't win a jade gold medal at the Beijing Poetry Olympics, not just yet!

ZHU QING


A Scottish wizard in Tang dynasty China
met Li Bai the celebrated poet.
Like Li Bai, he was always on the move,
a wanderer in search of the new.
Like Li Bai, he was fond of a drink,
and like Li Bai, he was lonely, too.

Lonely, but cheerful and brave,
with spells to take away sadness.
A little harp he called the clarsach,
it's music, like waterfall from a sacred mountain.

The Scottish wizard they called Green Bamboo,
Zhu Qing. His kilt and cloak
and pointed hat caused quite a stir.
His hairy muscular legs
were so distinctive.
His Chinese was perfect Mandarin.
My teacher, he said, was Master Chin.

In Shandong province, he began his work
of dragon-study and animal lore;
the ancient annals he poured over.
Then, to the water-city of Liaocheng
he felt drawn. News of it's beauty
were told to him by a wandering scholar.
And, in Liaocheng, began the story
of Zhu Qing's quest for the Great
Water Book of the Emperor Li Feng.