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
Chinese poet
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 Clear Bright by Li Ch’ing-chao
My friend, while you’re alive
And have wine, use it to get drunk.
There’ll be no second helpings
When you get to the Nine Springs.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth
Staying in the Mountains in Summer by Yü Hsüan-chi
I’ve moved here to the Immortal’s place:
Flowers everywhere we didn’t plant before.
The courtyard trees are bent like clothes-horses.
At the feast, winecups float in a new spring.
Dark balcony. Path through deep bamboo.
Long summer dress. Confusion of books.
I sing in the moonlight and ride a painted boat,
Trusting the wind to blow me home again.
translated by Geoffrey Waters
New Fall Night: To My Cousins by Wei Ying-wu
Our two worlds share this autumn night
we see the same River of Stars
a leaf drops from a towering paulownia
thoughts of going home fill my empty rooms
I worry about the hardships of the people
then too I have my own minor ills
I won’t be leaving anytime soon
but my hairline has already slipped away
translated by Red Pine
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
Spending the Night at Yunmen Temple Pavilion by Sun T’i
At Incense Pavilion below East Peak
the flowers in the mist were from another world
I held up a lantern on a deep mountain night
and pulled back the curtain on a lakeland fall
the swans stayed behind on the walls
the Dipper and the Ox spent the night in the window
the road to Heaven seemed so close again
I dreamed I was traveling with clouds
translated by Red Pine
Leonard Durso 