Believe It or Not

Call it superstition or unscientific

But for thousands of years

Chinese people have been resorting to

Fortune-telling for advice

When facing major dilemmas whether

Deciding the time to launch a war for a king

Selecting dwellings for common people

Or choosing a wedding date, burial hour

Seemingly, fortune tellers

Can see tomorrow’s sun

They deem a person’s fate preordained

With telltales hidden in life itself

And its interplay with time and space

They calculate seekers’ destinies

As if computing complex equations

Using a set of variables derived from

Observing facial features, palm lines

Feeling bone contours of hands

They also factor in

Ten heavenly stems

Twelve earthly branches

Four pillars of life

Counteraction of five elements

Compatibility of twelve zodiac signs

They weigh eight characters of birth time

Arbitrate yin yang duality

Take feng shui into account

Then words of wisdom are

Presented to the questioners

In cryptic fortune poems

With lines read as

“Dark clouds obscuring the sun”

To deliver a bad omen

“Spring flowers vibrantly blooming”

To hint an auspicious outlook

When the verdict is gruesome

Don’t be defeated by the dismal words

One can stretch imagination

To interpret those gloomy metaphors

Or choose not to believe it

By Shih-Fang Wang

From: United States