A poem written inspired by the Silk Princess, a Chinese wood panel painting from the 7th or 8th century. As the BBC's "A History of the World" describes the artifact:
According to this legend, a Chinese princess smuggled the secret of how to make silk out of China and into the country of her new husband, the king of Khotan. As she was a princess the border guards did not dare search her. In this painting her elaborate headdress conceals the cocoons of the silk moth and the seeds of the mulberry tree.
You are an escort in my head-dress
which everyone claims beautiful;
(they do not see it heavy on my head)
I smuggle you into Khotan land
that I might remember home.
How would they know
I feel giddy in a swaying sedan?
(What is it like to walk on land?)
How would they know
being carried everywhere is tiresome?
How would they know
I am angry at such arrangements?
I smile to be filial or pious
as all princesses must be.
I miss my eunuch’s teasing.
Why do I have feet and cannot walk?
What is land?
In my husband’s kingdom,
will they see my head-dress as beautiful?
will they see me soft ?
In my days
I keep mute
to be beautiful
still
to be beautiful
weak
to be beautiful
soft
to be beautiful
half full
to be beautiful
half awake
to be beautiful
all beautiful to be needed
all of soft silk
route
to my future fame
framed in a silk screen painting
perhaps
that I may remain
eternally beautifully
mute,
virtually real.