20th Century Chinese poetry

Longing by Cai Qijiao

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My longing for you brims with feelings of spring–
A clear flowing stream
Ripples in the foreground,
The green landscape beyond
Stretches back into the distance,
Under the quiet shadow of a cloud
Your smile is like the passage of fluttering birds.

My longing for you never rests–
As the rising moon
Skims over layer after layer of branches
You walk out from the depths of my heart
And through layer upon layer of memories
You cast radiant light on everything around me.

My longing for you comes back to reality–
On the mountain a high tower
Quiet under a hazy drizzle,
Waiting thus forever for love,
Without so much as a word
Without even hinting my intentions.

translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin

Poetry by Cai Qijiao

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It is the tide, an everlasting cry,
Or a star, the never-ending silence.
Whether shouted or voiceless,
Neither is for human beings to choose.

How easy to not write poetry for truth.
Lies come along to cover emptiness.
The shining flower petals of glory
Are not the same thing as the truth.

To search the heart is poetry’s lifeblood.
Perhaps it was found but it’s been lost again.
The blue smoke and grey ash–
Both are brothers of that fire.

translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin

Memory by Cai Qijiao

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An ice-cold river encircles the log hut
Whose compassionate face is staring toward me.
A tree like an umbrella shields the river
Who with windlike fingers plucks my heartstrings.

You are a bright cloud in my evening sky
While I sing you a poem about sunset.
But your songs are constellations of stars
That go on flickering deep in my soul.

My poem is merely withering leaves
Who in a warm dream laugh at thunderstorms,
But your songs are like the silence of flowers
Whose lasting fragrance scorns authority.

translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin

Pearls by Zheng Min

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How many years have you slept on the sea bottom!
Time has not passed in vain,
A rainbow of light flashing over your uneven shell
Glitters freely, suffused in coral pink.
A true pearl
Is not the perfect one.

Pearls cultivated on a production schedule
Have a regular, plump-eared surface.
A handful of them, all the same size,
Show off their brilliance encircling
Pretty wrists and necks; they are most perfect,
But they are not real pearls.

Nothing seems more like pearls than virtue does:
The truest probably don’t look the most beautiful,
The most beautiful probably aren’t the truest.
My heart and soul are always
Enchanted by the uneven pearl
Because it carries messages from the ocean
And owns a sincerity for which I yearn.

translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin

Missing You by Shu Ting

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A colorful hanging chart with no lines.
A pure algebra problem with no solution.
A one-string harp, stirring rosaries
that hang from dripping eaves.
A pair of oars that can never reach
the other side of the ocean.

Waiting silently like a bud.
Gazing at a distance like a setting sun.
Perhaps an ocean is hidden somewhere,
but when it flows out–only two tears.
O in the background of a heart,
in the deep well of a soul.

translated by Chou Ping

Parting by Gu Cheng

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In spring,
You delicately waved your handkerchief.
Were you telling me to go far away?
Or to come back at once?

No, it doesn’t mean anything
And doesn’t amount to anything.
It’s like a flower fallen into the river,
Like a pearl of dew resting on the flower.

Only the shadows comprehend,
Only the wind perceives,
Only the richly colored butterfly startled by a sigh
Keeps flying back over the heart of the flower. . .

translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin

A Philosophy of Saws by Liu Shahe

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True. The saws are sawing wood,
But wood is also sawing the saw.
Thus saws are becoming dull–
The more they are sharpened the frailer they get,
And eventually they break.

The wood sawn into boards
Is fashioned into furniture.
Saws just break
And are discarded.

translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin

a analogy for oppressed people everywhere to keep in mind

My Optimism by Shao Yanxiang

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I’m an adult
My optimism is adult too

My optimism
Doesn’t smile all the time
It has rolled in the mud
It’s been struck on an anvil
It burst out into sparks under the hammer
It burned in a bonfire that almost went out
For a while people scornfully called it dead ash

It has been worked over with nightsticks
Jerked around every which way
Then floated downriver chilled to the bone
None of its fibres
Is tainted by even a speck of dust
It doesn’t wear coveralls
Not my optimism

My optimism
Isn’t a coat
That you sometimes put on and then take off
Nor does it have a pocket with a conscience inside
That you could sometimes bring with you
Or sometimes leave at home

My optimism
leaped into my arms
And it warmed it up with my body heat
After it had been trampled when those
Who had once embraced it cast it aside

I warmed it up
And it warmed me

Double-crossed
And reported on in secret
It grew up step by step
Yet without encountering obstacles
Without a taste of mean tricks
How could my optimism become adult?

Adult optimism
Isn’t always sweet
Sometimes its face is bathed in tears
I once heard it choking back sobs
But it woke out of its grief
Caught my hand
Comforted my heart
Propped my head in both hands
And tried gently to console me
With a tune that only parents would use for a child
Hello old friend inseparable as body and shadow
My long-suffering weather-beaten optimism

translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin