Barely fifty, but already my face is old, hair white.
I traveled this whole coast fleeing the state.
Rough cloth saved my shivering bones
as I roamed the awful cold.
Thus began the years of my disease.
Everywhere, people were mud and ash.
Between heaven and earth,
there’s nowhere a body is safe.
I see my wife and children follow.
We sigh for mutual sorrows.
My old home gone to weeds,
and all my neighbors scattered,
we may never find the road back home.
We add our tears to the river.
translated by Sam Hamill
