Today
You and I
Are stepping over that venerable threshold
Don’t offer blessings
Don’t say goodbye
To do so would sound like a performance
Better to keep silence
Concealing isn’t necessarily deceptive
Why not leave memories for the future
Just as we leave dreams for the night
Or tears in the sea
And wind in the sails
Translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin
20th Century Chinese poetry
Early Spring by Gu Cheng
Morose, the sky hangs back:
Will there be snowflakes? or raindrops?
A muddy river flows fast:
Is it pursuing? or escaping?
Far from here lovers part:
A prologue? or epilogue?
translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin
untitled poem by Ping Hsin
The orphan boat of my heart
Crosses the unsteady, undulant
Ocean of time.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth & Ling Chung
from Spring Waters by Ping Hsin
In shaping the snow into blossoms—
The north wind is tender after all.
All beings are deceived by light and shadow.
Beyond the horizon—
When did the moon ever wax and wane?
In this hazy world,
I have forgotten the first word,
Nor will I ever know the last.
translated by Kai-yu Hsu
from The Fall of Moon Lady by Chung Ling
Tomorrow I will sink into darkness
Like a wing-broken china bird
Eternally
Falling toward midnight.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth & Ling Chung
Dreams by Ai Qing
Waking hours
Are crammed with fantasy
Then dreams
Drop in to visit while you sleep
Perhaps an early childhood sweetheart
Or an old buddy arriving from far away
Grief writhes on an inner-spring mattress
Ecstatic rendezvous occur on a heap of straw
While poverty-stricken you receive gifts
When you’re affluent you get robbed
It could be a false alarm
Or the inkling that more is amiss.
treanslated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin
One Generation by Gu Cheng
Dark nights endowed me with eyes for darkness
Yet with them I seek light
translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin
note: Written in response to the Cutural Revolution but yet it seems appropriate for these times, too.
from The Girl in Memory by Yang Lian
Names spread in all directions like a breeze
That starts with you yet also dreams beyond your breath
And is forgotten not far away beneath the ground
Or even very far away walks into the room that yearns for you
Even though you have never entered it
translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin
One Generation by Gu Cheng
Dark night endowed me with eyes for darkness
yet with them I seek light
translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin
When We Finally Turn Fifty by Wang Xiaolong
We’ll be just as we are now
Kissing as we casually fix a meal
Getting by whether or not the laundry’s been done
No talking allowed during reading time
No money in the bank
Having a spat once every three days on average
Making our walk home from the movies
Deliberately long and sad
Then pretending we haven’t known each other for three whole days
So we can be especially intimate on Sundays
The weather’s getting strangely pleasant
During the night we dream with our heads stuck together
And see two small dogs
Running across the snow
When we finally turn fifty
translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin
Leonard Durso 