Constellations in Mandarin

^{_{Photo by Vlad Cheu021ban on Pexels.com}}

The wind feels like peace hiding inside a cave.
Fire idles, stilling, while a dream stumbles forth
in a slant of sage.  Its healing smoke, a wave
of vision, rescooping itself from dust and morning.
The earth is a semblance of all things brave
still-turning, ever-burning.  And 9 is Jupiter
turned on its head, abundant, as if to pave
the way ahead, bowing on one knee, facing north
while a peace of wind echoes like a song you crave.

_{^{© N Nazir 2024}}

*Written for dVerse, hosted by Grace who challenges us to write a magic 9 poem, i.e. a poem of 9 lines, with meter and line length at the discretion of the poet, using rhyme scheme a b a c a d a b a (c and d are unrhymed).

*I recently did a poetry workshop where we were inspired to write whatever came to mind using Chinese characters. I adapted one of these free writes to the magic 9 poem. It felt serendipitous as I had mentioned 9 in the original write so it already seemed in harmony with this form🌟