The weather was so perfect this afternoon — clear blue sky, refreshing breeze blowing out of the west, cool and delightful temperature — that I needed an excuse to get outside. I walked the three or four blocks over to Upstair Used Books. Ira, the owner of Upstair Used Books, has been working the library book sales, and he had a lot of new poetry.

I saw a book titled Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry, and pulled it out to look at it. Tucked inside there was a sheet of typing paper — the good stuff, thesis paper — folded in half and with a short unsigned poem centered and neatly typed on it:

Near the solstice,
Everything sleeps, like
Thunder beneath the earth.
The passes are closed,
And the travelers rest.
Light flicker across
The valleys below.
The moon, almost full,
Bodes well.

So I bought the book.

As I was paying Ira for the book, I showed him the poem tucked inside it. He read it over once. ” ‘Thunder beneath the earth…’,” he said.

“Yeah, like something out of the Yi Jing,” I said. “That poem is really why I’m buying the book. Maybe I’ll frame it, the way it’s typed….”

” ‘The moon almost full…’,” said Ira, reading the poem over again. ” ‘Bodes well.’ Yeah, I like it more the second time. Hey, would you make me a copy….” So I went out and made a photocopy and brought it back to him. An unsigned found poem — who could resist?