Notes of the New Moon

To the guest of the first night,

Welcome to the Storm Post Office. This letter is written in a small town where no one has kept track of the dynasty, on the first night of the month, when the moon refuses to show itself and a lamp has been hung under the eaves of a wine shop. The envelope is cream bamboo-fibre paper, its black pen lettering trailing long dry-brush gestures; a vermilion woodblock seal of the shop sign sits in one corner, beside a jade-coloured line drawing of a courtyard, an ochre ledger strip, and a length of cloth tie knotted loosely.

When he spoke of the small years and the great, Zhuangzi gave this example: “The morning mushroom cannot know a month’s last day from its first; the summer cicada cannot know spring from autumn.” — Zhuangzi, Free and Easy Wandering (Warring States period)

A mushroom that lives one morning never sees the head and tail of a month. We would rather you counted your days whole: today is the new moon, and the ledger turns to a fresh page. You need not know what year it is; just write, and the rain will dry the ink.

Moon dark, lamp bright

Storm Post Office

Year unrecorded · New-moon night