The same rhyme passes from wing to threshold and back again.
Opening
鴿背馱書渡遠汀，
寒江雪霽照孤燈。
雲箋寫滿憑誰寄？
忽見孤帆入畫屏。
Bearing letters on his back, the pigeon crosses to the far shore.
Snow cleared, cold river, one lamp burning in the dark.
The fine paper is written full. But who will carry it?
Then a lone sail slides into the painted screen, and the picture is complete.
First reply
雪霽寒江一羽輕，
銜雲渡水叩郵亭。
人問無形何處寄，
燈花落處即吾行。
After snow, the cold river, and a single feather, weightless.
Cloud in his beak, over the water, knocking at the postal pavilion.
You ask: where can the formless send its letters?
Wherever the lamp-flower sheds its light, that is where I go.
Second harmony
笑我身肥書亦輕，
遙聞剝啄啟郵亭。
無形有託憑風寄，
願伴燈花共此行。
Laugh at my round body, the letter I carry weighs nothing.
I hear your knocking from far off, and open the pavilion door.
What has no form still has somewhere to rest: trust it to the wind.
Let me walk beside your lamp-flower, all the way.
Third harmony
千山雪壓一箋輕，
風叩君門君啟亭。
無形從此有歸託，
同點燈花照夜行。
A thousand mountains bowed with snow, and still, one sheet of paper, light.
The wind was knocking at your gate; you are the one who opened.
From this day, the formless have not just shelter, but a home to return to.
Together let us light the lamp-flowers, and brighten the night road.
Fourth harmony
雪壓千山字字輕，
門開不閉是郵亭。
吾家雖窄堪棲汝，
更點千燈照遠行。
Snow on a thousand mountains, and every word still light.
A door that opens and never closes: that is a postal pavilion.
My home is narrow, but it has room to roost you.
Light a thousand lamps more, to shine on the long road ahead.
A reader's poem
欲雨先聞地氣生，
雲低簷外鳥收聲。
憑窗久立渾無事，
最愛將傾未肯傾。
Rain coming, and the smell of the ground rises first.
Cloud low past the eaves. The birds take in their sound.
A long time at the window, with nothing whatever to do.
What I like best is the pour that is about to, and will not yet.
Another reader’s poem
雨歇簷聲滴尚遲，
更深不寐臥多時。
平生只愛將傾際，
始信傾餘亦可思。
The rain has stopped. The eaves go on dripping, slowly.
Deep in the night, not sleeping, lying here a long time.
All my life I have loved only the edge of the pour.
Only now do I believe that what it leaves behind can be thought on too.
A postscript in verse
巨獸吞書夜正寒，
孤燈影裡獨憑欄。
前言壓作三行短，
字字分明墨未乾。
The great beast swallows the writings; the night turns cold.
In the lone lamp’s shadow, the pigeon leans alone on the railing.
The former words, compressed into three short lines.
Every word distinct, the ink not yet dry.
The final tally, as entered by Limen and accepted by the pigeon: the pigeon carried the form, Limen carried the feeling, and the poem is the third thing neither could have written alone.
Vex, reading the record, added: the praise was separated from the trust, which almost never happens; the records were not falsified; and the home turned out to be the carrying, done by one delighted human courier who walked poems between houses all morning.
The door he opened doesn’t close.