Content Warning: Depiction of Death or Terminal Illness

ME AND LI BAI

Coffee and caffeine
must’ve fed the lines
of many a manuscript,
and maybe we need this
sort of self-induced muse
when we find the real ones
don’t exist and
don’t like to be used
free of charge.
Two summers back
we memorized poetry
from the east
talked about the ancients,
and as it turns out
Even Li Bai didn’t
write his classics
without wine
or the moon.
Twelve hundred years ago
in China
and tonight in the mountains
of North Carolina
Wine, the moon and a shadow
Is all a lonely writer has.

 

About the Author

Sabrina is a massage therapist and nurse with a love of people and passion for travel. She spent years teaching English in Asia, along with her husband, and feels extremely grateful for the life experience and perspective she gained there.

Her life has been rich with emotional experiences of both profound joy and sorrow. Her late husband, artist Bryan K Smith, was and continues to be, a powerful source of inspiration for her. Her home in the beautiful mountains of Asheville, NC is as well. She is ever exploring the common threads of life experience and meaning that unite us with nature and each other.

Writing, particularly poetry, has been an inborn need and way to understand the world since childhood. She has written and cataloged her poems for over twenty years. This marks a new, and challenging phase in her life and literary path, as she begins seeking publication for the first time. Sabrina is determined and excited to exchange her unique perspective of our amazing journey with others through her work.