Billy Collins
Liu Yung
This poet of the Sung dynasty is so miserable.
The wind sighs around the trees,
a single swan passes overhead,
and he is alone on the water in his skiff.
If only he appreciated life
in eleventh-century China as much as I do—
no loud cartoons on television,
no music from the ice cream truck,
just the calls of elated birds
and the steady flow of the water clock.
Billy Collins, Ballistics: Poems, Random House, 2011.