Hymnus Ad Patrem Sinensis

I praise those ancient Chinamen Who left me a few words, Usually a pointless joke or a silly question A line of poetry drunkenly scrawled on the margin of a quicksplashed picture—bug, leaf, caricature of Teacher on paper held together now by little more than ink & their own strength brushed momentarily over it Their world & several others since Gone to hell in a handbasket, they knew it— Cheered as it whizzed by— & conked out among the busted spring rain cherryblossom winejars Happy to have saved us all. Philip Whalen, “Hymnus Ad Patrem Sinensis” from The Collected Poems of Philip Whalen </I>copyright �© 2007 by Brandeis University Press and reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press. www.wesleyan.edu/wespress Source: The Collected Poems of Philip Whalen (Wesleyan University Press, 2007).