Maryland poet John Dutterer responded to the book in the highest of literary forms – poetry. To adapt a line from Robert Bolt, he has done my book more honor than I fear my book can bear.
Keen writer that he is, Dutterer saw through my pages to the behind-the-scenes mindset it took to write them, and drew out a tribute to personal memory. It is a touching, insightful, and universal poem, and he has kindly permitted me to share it. (Photo from Orion Headless.)
The Chinese Vessel
by John Dutterer
- for Mike Hobson
As you colonize
who you are now
it is fitting that
you have unearthed
the city of your
earlier self:
each of us has a
Capital of Then.
And since seeds
do not die, but
sleep until an ideal
sun is at its zenith
(on a day only you
can create and approve)
– stop and savor
this past, like a lotus -
incandescent
unfolding the
bloom of Beijing
unfurling the scroll
of these years
which sprawl
in prosperity
toward Heaven.
John Dutterer’s poems and stories have appeared in Orion Headless, Marco Polo Quarterly, Pedigree, Radiant Turnstile, Argestes, Pure Francis, The Minnetonka Review, and other journals. He lives in Maryland with his wife and sons. A sampling of his online pieces:
Small Cyclones of December
A Parisian Fantasy
She
Lines on my 33rd
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