You came with New Year’s greetings
walking here alone in the bitter cold
knocking on a bamboo temple gate at night
covered with snow from your hike through the hills
after starting a fire deep in my stove
and closing the door to my empty room
we shared a gourd full of wine
and didn’t speak of all the things that went wrong

translated by Red Pine

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.

the only person
to talk to
in a land foreign
to my ears
my voice
familiar
in echo

Flick of perfume, slight, and faintly bitter
on my wrist, where her hand had rested

Two wrist-bones and the soft thud of veins
printed on the hard flesh of her palm

The drinks
finished but untasted

how nice it would be
to talk to someone
who remembers DeNiro
in Bang The Drum Slowly
who saw Mick Jagger dance
who loves Linda Ronstadt
who saw After The Wedding
who is reading Marquez
who has both read and seen
Milagro Beanfield War
to finally
after 6 years of talking
to myself
to have a conversation
on familiar ground

From the walls of Po-ti high in the coloured dawn
To Kiang-ling by night-fall is three hundred miles,
Yet monkeys are still calling on both banks behind me
To my boat these ten thousand mountains away.

translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu