The post boat was like a gondola that called at each houseboat. It carried a clerk, weighing scales, and a bell to announce arrivals.

Has he been kept from us? Portents of rain, rumors, ambushed letters . . . Curtained palanquin, fetch our word, bring us word: Who has died? Who'll live? Has the order gone out to close the waterways... the one open road?

And then we saw the boat being rowed through the fog of death, the sentence passed on our city. It came close to reveal smudged black-ink letters which the postmanhe was alive gave us, like signs, without a word,

and we took them, without a word. From our deck we'd seen the hill road bringing a jade rain, near-olive, down from the temple, some penitent's cymbaled prayer? He took our letters, and held them, like a lover, close

to his heart. And the rain drew close. Was there, we asked, a new password blood, blood shaken into letters, cruel primitive script that would erode our saffron link to the past? Tense with autumn, the leaves, drenched olive,

fell on graveyards, crying "O live!'' What future would the rain disclose? O Rain, abandon all pretense, now drown the world, give us your word, ring, sweet assassin of the road, the temple bell! For if letters

come, I will answer those letters and my year will be tense, alive with love! The temple receives the road: there, the rain has come to a close. Here the waters rise; our each word in the fog awaits a sentence:

His hand on the scales, he gives his word: Our letters will be rowed through olive canals, tense waters no one can close.