\"Clouded Staircase\" Available August 19, 2008 on Bar/None Records.A Sword In The Spring Office\nby Li Ho (A.D. 791-817)\n \nIn the ancestral chest lies a watery sword, three feet long.\nOnce it followed and killed a dragon in the chasm of Wu.\nLike a slanting crescent moon seen from a cave, the moon\n shaving the chill dews,\nOr like a stretched strip of satin, smooth, unruffled by the wind,\nThe sheath like an old dragon\'s skin bristling with thorns.\nThe blade has absorbed sea birds\' oil, shines like a white bird\'s\n tail.\nThis sword contains the whole heart of the hero.\nDo not let its light be reflected on the print in the Spring Office.\nLet there be tassled silk twists and bright metals hanging from\n it.\nJust the heavenly light from the sword can cut jade to pieces.\nWhen it was drawn, the White King of the West shuddered;\nOn the autumn pathways his ghostly mother wept at midnight.\n\n-Thanks Michelle O\'Brien, Chad the artist, The Polish Girl, Hurley\'s twin, and \"Frazetta Girl\" Ann, Arbor, Bar, Bar-None, Bar/None, DeCamillis, Dillon, Electric, Fossum, Michelle, None, O'Brien, Starling