The White Jade Pipe of Shun

What could it mean to find such a thing,
A tool to set and keep a tune’s pitch
From an age for which you had just tales?

You could make claims. You could play with it
And dream you’re back then. Blow a pure tone
And think, was that a sound that Shun knew?

Did it sound the same way in his ears,
A pitch for the long-gone ears of Shun?
Then, you die. Your age dies, too. Years, years,

Years, and years, and then a bright young man
With gifts for verse but bad luck in names,
Puts you and the white jade pipe, now both

Old tales, as the last lines in a poem.
Years, years, years, and years. The name of Shun
Is still known. Your name, Ji Jing, is known,

At least as a brief note from the time
Of the Han, and the doomed young Tang man,
Li He, who used you in his poem, well,

He’s still quite well known, at least in poems.
You’re all tales now, and if a jade pipe
Turned up out of the shade of a shrine

These days, we’d date it, make reams of notes,
And put it in a well-lit glass case.
That’s what we do with old tools these days.

But here you are, you and the white jade
Pitch-pipe of Shun, your name and Li He’s,
Stuck in a poem once more. Years and years.