You, waters with no feeling,
Have you regrets as you flow east?
In my heart are things I cannot express,
Does that make me different from you?
translated by William H. Nienhauser
poetry
from Orchid and Orange (A Plea for Official Preferment): II by Chang Chiu-ling
Here, south of the Yang-tsze, grows a red orange-tree.
All winter long its leaves are green,
Not because of a warmer soil,
But because its nature is used to the cold.
Though it might serve your honourable guests,
You leave it here, far below mountain and river.
Circumstance governs destiny.
Cause and effect are an infinite cycle.
You plant your peach-trees and your plums,
You forget the shade from this other tree.
translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu
On Hearing a Flute at Night from the Wall of Shou-hsiang by Li Yi
The sand below the border-mountain lies like snow,
And the moon like frost beyond the city-wall,
And someone somewhere, playing a flute,
Has made the soldiers homesick all night long.
translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu
A Night Abroad by Tu Fu
A light wind is rippling at the grassy shore. . .
Through the night, to my motionless mast,
The stars lean down from open space,
And the moon comes running up the river.
. . .If only my art might bring me fame
And free my sick old age from office!–
Flitting, flitting, what am I like
But a sand-snipe in the wide, wide world!
translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu
from The Hard Road by Li Po
I would cross the Yellow River, but ice chokes the ferry;
I would climb the T’ai-hang Mountain, but the sky is blind with snow. . .
I would sit and poise a fishing-pole, lazy by a brook–
But I suddely dream of riding a boat, sailing for the sun. . .
Journeying is hard,
Journeying is hard.
There are many turnings–
Which am I to follow?. . .
I will mount a long wind some day and break the heavy waves
And set my cloudy sail straight and bridge the deep, deep sea.
translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu
The Painting Where the Dog Was by Ricardo Alberto Perez
The painting where the dog
was
isn’t anymore.
A mark’s left
on the wall.
The dog
that was
in the painting that’s gone
has come back,
tame
and resting.
translated by Katherine M Hedeen
To Hope I Return, to the Wood by Carilda Oliver Labra
To hope I return, to the wood
that built my important days,
to the wayward spring
of times past.
To the justice of seeing it all
as if it belonged to me,
for when it’s said and done there’s no way
to abandon the hunger of the beast.
translated by Katherine M. Hedeen
Mezcal by Damaris Calderon
At the bottom
of a bottle
of mezcal
–like at the end–
waiting for us
is the worm.
I chew
in dry earth
that whiteness
of living hedgerows
to know
the taste
of what will eat me.
translated by Katherine M. Hedeen
more from Yunus Emre
Yunus is my name, I’m out of my mind.
Love serves as my guide to the very end.
All alone, toward the majestic Friend
I walk kissing the ground—and I arrive.
translated by Talat S. Halman
from an untitled poem by Yunus Emre
Yunus, leave such fears behind,
Drive all care out of your mind.
Love is what one must first find:
One’s a mystic from then on.
translated by Talat S. Halman
Leonard Durso 