Most Read... John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Christopher MiddletonNotes on a Viking Prow
(PN Review 10)
Next Issue Between Languages, Howard Cooper 'Ur-language' Oksana Maksymchuk 'Multifarious Beast' Zinovy Zinik 'My Mother Tongue, My Fatherland' Philip Terry 'Lost Languages' Victoria Moul 'Bad Latin, Barbarous Inglishe'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 50, Volume 12 Number 6, July - August 1986.

Temple in the Little Goose Pagoda, Xi'an John Clarke

They brought religion first in panniers,
And later, on dry ground near the market-place,
The merchants raised this temple to their faith.

After an absence, its yards are peopled,
Buddhas enticed down from their retirement,
Fishponds restocked, and incense mingles freely

With the tractor-worshipping, crocodile-
shirted and bumper harvesting peasantry.
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image