Li Po Adrift

by Bob Bradshaw
The Writer's Block
Third Place, July 2022
Judged by R.T. Castleberry


I row alone through these canyons
where dragons sleep in purling rivers.

Hummingbirds drain the last nectar
from a muddy branch’s blossoms.

It’s the end of autumn and an early snow
flies in as cranes fly off over Wu Shan.

How quickly sixty years pass!

Draining a tankard of wine, adrift,
I grow content with the world’s beauty,
no longer laboring at the oars.


So Li Po is with us again, in a tender rendering of time spent with thoughts of aging and drink. --R.T. Castleberry