To and Around Lantan Lake, Chiayi


360 around the gazebo

A ride along the dyke road

          I had a good day discovering Lantan Lake and a riding place I will go to often. It’s a half hour away and there’s a little bit of a hill towards the end,  relaxing. 


Today I was serenaded by someone in the gazebo practicing his saxophone. I would need a while to relax and then did my round of the lake to the sweet spot on the other side, just before and nursing college, to imagine romping on the peninsula and taking a dip. Then. I rode up the steep little hill and back to highway 159 down the long slope into Chiayi city. It was a fine day, despite the 96o heat. I can't help but feel blessed that I'm being afforded this freedom and health to enjoy the beautiful landscape, swim, bike, and be vaccinated for my trip to America in a few weeks.



Plum rains won’t quench Lantan Lake,

But typhoons will work it out in this year of drought.

Incessant downpours will come so hard and long

That we will stay indoors,

Windows rattling, doors howling

So much so that Lantan’s waterline rings,

Like the age of a tree shaped vertically,

Will become a memory sliced perpendicularly.

As every inlet is covered over, beaches vanish.

The lake gets bloated.

Spillway channel filled to the rim

Tumbling down the slope to the valley within

Where red-haired intruders haphazardly drained it

Irrigating cash crop they pillaged Taiwan by

Viaduct useless for such spillage

Into Renyitan Reservoir

Through highway three to the dam

Then randomly into Bazhang River wham bam!

Meandering water snake skirting Chiayi

Into the Taiwan’s Strait, like a tsunami.

Yes, that August deluge is hard to imagine

In the throes of water-rationed parched Formosa

One-hundred degree days of electrical strain

In the thick and thin of life’s vicissitude,

But those bends and growth signal change

The amazing landscape of long distance vistas  

Alishan Mountain to the east, its crowning creation

Rippling green water coaxed by a windy hand

Tall bamboo drooping down to the forest shore

And when the rain finally comes,

I will be witness and recipient of the might

How the moon rises across the lake sky night

How the stars shine bright tinged in watery moonlight

The subtle mystery blinded by overexposed daylight

But with her night light, her mystery grows

Pulsar of hearts in faith in sync  

Storm ridden outward we no longer wait to hear

Bamboo wind’s rubbing xylophone percussion

Echoing around its glistening surface gleaming

The surprise of nature’s passionate kiss

Into substantive bliss steaming   


May 20, 2021 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chiayi University School of Foreign Languages

Image
            My friend found a job vacancy at Chiayi University for me. It is 38 minutes away by bike, 20 by car. I may apply.  The job starts Feb. 2022 and I must apply before May 14. It is 12 contact hours a week plus I would have university duties and homework and prep time to do.   I’m going through the motions about the Chiayi job application, due May 14; it will be fun to see if Seton Hall can send an official transcript and I can finish the job application and support. It would be hilarious if they choose to interview me. My publications are three poetry books and one of short stories. There’s no place in “experience” for a forty-year veteran high school teacher so I added it. I gave three colleagues from my high school in Brooklyn and one professor from Taiwan  as references. Let's see if they want a 66 year old wise guy like me; they want fresh college meat to grill.        ...
Read more

Cubic Cookies from Chiayi

Image
  The pride of Chiayi; TK Food Cubic Pastry; “Taiwan Native Flavor”. The western style tourist oriented campaign; packaging and presentation of the same wheat cracker (unfortunately with palm oil) I got from the old lady on Shanghai Street earlier in the week; in a unique tan paper box with a cartoon of a ah-ma farmer crossing that Bajiang River pedestrian bridge on a bike, a school girl reading a book, and a mail carrier about to fly a paper plane; the peanut butter buckwheat is amazing! I couldn't find the store on GPS though I rode up and down the street. Finally I stopped into a corner restaurant to ask for directions. The owner lady brought me outside and pointed down the street with a 'why would you want to go there' look. I told her the cookies were famous and she shrugged her shoulders.  When I asked if she had made the cookies herself she said yes, and perhaps she did, but the cookies that TK Food turned into a Chiayi landmark treat awe more to packaging and new fl...
Read more