Shàn in Abundance
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
I know a woman in Beijing who cares.
She cares for cats. She rescues them the way
The Buddha might. She takes them in and shares
Her tiny income with them. People flay
And eat them in the south of China. She
Protects abandoned cats. When I heard of
This, I requested one. She brought me three.
This lady practices the kind of love
We call compassion—and charity. I
Was shamed and thrilled that she had brought me more.
She brought me three and tripled love. How sly.
I only wish that she had brought me four.
I should have asked for five or six. I wish
That I had fed six rescued creatures fish.
very sweet
I didn’t know you had sent this. Thanks.
This same poem, under the same title, posted on Sept. 20, 2018.
Another poem with duplicate postings, but under different titles: “Charles Randall Stanfield: In so Modest a Setting” = “In so Modest a Setting”
Not sure how duplicates might affect the computer’s poem tally, if that’s how they are all added up. Something to watch: I won’t assume anything about the true total number yet.
I’ve e-mailed you about this but I failed to say among me expressions of gratitude that I too am concerned about the website’s counting method. In this one instance I’ve just deleted the extra iteration. However, I need to warn you that way back when I was posting long sonnet sequences within the encyclopedia, I stooopidly made sure that each individual sonnet in each of these sequences was also posted separately. I can’t remember my rationale for that. At the moment I don’t feel enough will to do anything about this situation. I will say, however, two things: 1. I have always meant to go beyond the total of 5,000 just to be sure I validate the 5,000 claim and 2. there are many hidden sonnets already on the website hidden from the general reader. These sonnets are tucked away in a “page” [WordPress lingo] that the general reader never sees. It is my strong impression that the website does not acknowledge in any way their existence there. I have reason to believe that the website “counter” doesn’t take them into consideration while counting the posted sonnets on the site. These hidden ones are, after all, not formally posted. I’ll e-mail you separately about all this.