! To Li Po (Li Bai) And Uriah

Dear Li Po, strange things happen to poets during their life, especially those who like wine. But now, more than a thousand years after your suicide, men have named a crater on the planet Mercury with your name… Mercury, the planet the Greeks called Hermes Apollo, messenger of gods and poets; the shining one; although men have not been there yet. When they do, they may find you sitting in your crater, watching the Moon (we think it will appear to you two times a day instead of once…) and drinking wine with Uriah; (and your shadows will be there too, tall on the crater’s slope…) you’re teaching him Chinese; he’s translating your poems into English with your approval. He’d like that. We hope you would. A strange place for immortals to drink wine; but poets do and say strange things; that’s why we love them, just as children love surprises, dear Li Po.