Ode to The Tin Shed

For Carol and Ken

Dear Architect, Builder of Cities, Spice Merchant of Homes:
Build me a room to read and brood;
Make me a space to think in majestic solitude.
It doesn't have to be grand, of jade-clad columns and gold-flaked dome;

Nor I want one with wind-swept hallway and latticed windows
where silhouettes of veiled maidens working with their looms
would stir my lyrical heart.

Just erect me a tin shed of modesty comfort;
Where I can feel a happiness without cause
and shut out the oily businesses of the world.
Raise me a bamboo frame outside the door
where the scented jasmine can climb and bloom watered by my toilet stops.

Give some thoughts to the summer heat
which would lift me dreamily up from my books.
And winter cold can be soporific too.
So feed the room with body-affirming warmth from the sun,
and funnel its ray through mesh of airy devises.

Not for me soft lounge suite and rainbow carpet,
and houseplants and tropical swampy clutter.
And please bear with me the final instruction:
Build me a machine for thinking, where I can breathe the sour breath of books.
All that would be nice; and so would making it in The House and Garden.

by Yao Souchou