Loneliness by Tu Fu

A hawk hovers in air.
Two while gulls float on the stream.
Soaring with the wind, it is easy
to drop and seize
Birds who foolishly drift with the current.
Where the dew sparkles in the grass,
The spider’s web waits for its prey.
The processes of nature resemble the business of men.
I stand alone with ten thousand sorrows.

translated by Kenneth Rexroth

Tune: “Jade Butterflies” by Liu Yung

where I gaze
the rain is ending and the clouds break up
as I lean at the rail in anxious silence
seeing off the last of autumn’s glow
the evening scene is lonely
enough to chill Sung Yü to sadness
though touch of wind and rain is light
the duckweed gradually grows older
in moon’s frost cold
the wu-t’ung leaves whirl yellow
giving love is taking pain
where are you now?
the misty waters vast, and vague.

it’s hard to forget
writing or drinking
how many nights alone beneath a clouded moon
again the changes, stars and frost
the seas are broad, the heavens far
and no way home.
the swallows pair
and I depend on letters
I point into the evening sky
to sight in vain the returning boat
at dusk we’ll gaze toward one another
in the sound of the swan’s cry
standing till the slanting sun is set.

translated by Jerome P. Seaton

an untitled poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for a reply,
And in my heart there sits a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

facebook pictures

as I post pictures in albums
of trips I’ve taken
this past year
I find they are devoid
of people
or at least a person
who I would imagine
standing there
filling the frame
with her presence
and though there is no name
nor face
to that presence
I miss her
just the same

New Year’s Eve by Nazim Hikmet

The snow falling hard through the night
sparkled in the starlight.
There is a house on a street in a city,
a wooden house so far away.

The child sleeping on the pillow
is plump and blond–my son.
There are no guests, no one.
Poor Istanbul out the window.

Shrill whistles screamed outside.
Loneliness feels like prison.
Munevver closed her book
and softly cried.

There is a house on a street in a city,
a wooden house so far away.
The snow falling hard through the night
sparkled in the starlight.

translated by Randy Blasing & Mutlu Konuk

Longing in My Heart by Wei Ying-wu

Shall I ask the willow trees on the dike
For whom do they wear their green spring dress?
In vain I saunter to the places of yesterday,
And I do not see yesterday’s people.
Weaving through myriad courtyards and village squares,
Coming and going, the dust of carriages and horses–
Do not say I have met with no acquaintance:
Only they are not those close to my heart.

translated by Irving Y. Lo