A house at a crossroad, beside a grove, composes
another house to take as a husband

mistranslation of "Awaiting Husband Stone"
by Wang Jian (768-833)

I made him appear
floor, wall, and wall,
doorframe, thatched roof, my dear one,
he stood, open-eyed, open-shuttered,
he sat down, shutters flapping, clap! clap! his beams shook, his startled grasshoppers leapt
from the thatch,
he lay down, my love, his four corners, his shouldered ceiling, my husband,
lay himself down, at the crossroad, by the grove, at my side.

-- Nina Lindsay