hearts shouldn’t try to be flowers
that just keep opening up
for every inch of longing
they make an inch of ashes.
translated by David Young
9th Century Chinese poetry
Boudoir Feelings by Li Shang-yin
Red dew on floral chamber, white honeycomb–
Yellow bee and purple butterfly, both in disarray,
At spring’s casement, awakened from a dream of love:
They share the same bed, and do not know it.
translated by Eugene Eoyang & Irving Y. Lo
from A Spring Day in the Countryside by Wen T’ing-yün
The feeling of separation, what is there to say
But that the heart is an endless river of stars.
translated by William R. Schultz
About Geese by Li Shang-yin
Asleep on the sand, dozing on the water, they form a flock.
Jagged shoreline, fading light, clouds over distant bank.
They don’t know in their heart the plight of the peacock:
The female fettered, forever apart from the male
translated by Eugene Eoyang & Irving Y. Lo
Aboard a Boat, Reading Yüan Chen’s Poems by Po Chü-i
I pick up your scroll of poems, read in front of the lamp;
the poems are ended, the lamp gutters, the sky not yet light.
My eyes hurt, I put out the lamp, go on sitting in the dark;
a sound of waves blown up by head winds, sloshing against the boat.
translated by Burton Watson
Autumn Day on the Lake by Hsueh Ying
Sailing on the Great Lake at sunset
mist and waves and everywhere sorrow
rising and falling events of the past
who can tell me why they flow east
translated by Red Pine
Written at the Sungting Relay Station by Chang Hu
Hill shapes merge with the far-off sky
east of the mist-covered marshlands
the ocean glows with the day’s first light
the river turns white in the distant wind
steep trails lead to a high plateau
small paths link columns of smoke
why are all my retired friends
not here among the Five Lakes
translated by Red Pine
for Memorial Day: Northern Campaign by Li I
After Tien-shan’s snows, cold desert wind.
Flute sounds all about, the going hard.
Three hundred thousand men, among these rocks,
this once, as one, together turn: gaze on the moon.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Coming Home by Tu Mu
The children pull at my coat and inquire,
“You’ve come home, oh, why so late?
Who were you fighting with all these years,
to win that head of white hair?”
translated by J.P. Seaton
from On the Border: poem 3 by Kuan Hsiu
In Green Mound Cave, they say
a white wolf dwells.
Once in a while it comes out
looks east, and howls
and howls
and howls.
Paint that for me, if you can,
my painter friend.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Leonard Durso 