Bitter Thought

Green creepers cling to the jade trees,
And radiant lights play on each other.
Below are two true men
Who spread their wings and fly up on high.
My heart - how it leaps for joy!
I want to mount up to the clouds and follow.
Luxuriant is the western mountain peak:
Stone dwellings, blue, blue, merging with the sky.
In the midst is an old recluse;
His beard and hair all white
As, with his bamboo staff, he comes with me
And teaches me that I must abandon words.

Tu Fu (AD 712 – 770)
(From the Selected Poems of Tu Fu, Anvil Press, London 1990, translated by David Hinton)

Tonight at Fu-chou, this moon she watches
Alone in our room. And my little, far-off
Children, too young to understand what keeps me
Away, or even remember Chang’an. By now,

Her hair will be mist-scented, her jade-white
Arms chilled in its clear light. When
Will it find us together again, drapes drawn
Open, light traced where it dries our tears?

(Extract from) Alone, Looking for Blossoms Along the River

The sorrow of riverside blossoms inexplicable,
And nowhere to complain - I’ve gone half crazy.
I look up our southern neighbour. But my friend in wine
Gone ten days drinking. I find only an empty bed.

A thick frenzy of blossoms shrouding the riverside,
I stroll, listing dangerously, in full fear of spring.
Poems, wine - even this profusely driven, I endure.
Arrangements for this old, white-haired man can wait.

Nostalgia, (2000) oil on canvas by Hao Shi Ming

Ten years-dead and
living dim and draw
apart.

I don’t try to remember
But forgetting is hard.
Lonely grave a
thousand miles off,

Cold thoughts - where
can I talk them out?

Even we met you
wouldn’t know me,

Dust on face,

Hair like frost –

In a dream last night
suddenly I was home.

By the window of the little room

You were combing your hair
and making up.

Yuan Zhen, An Elegy I
(From here)

O youngest, best-loved daughter of Xie,
Who unluckily married this penniless scholar,
You patched my clothes from your own wicker basket,
And I coaxed off your hairpins of gold, to buy wine with;
For dinner we had to pick wild herbs –
And to use dry locust-leaves for our kindling.
…Today they are paying me a hundred thousand –
And all that I can bring to you is a temple sacrifice.

Yi Sha (translated by Denis Mair, from here)

Traitor to His Country

Traitor to his country
He turns up on foreign soil
At a soccer stadium
In the second row of the bleachers,
A middle-aged man
Wearing dark glasses
With a part in his hair,
He watches the soccer team
Of the land he turned his back on.
Now it’s the kickoff:
His small-footed countrymen
Can’t play a high game.
The traitor shouts and waves a flag,
Charged up with fighting spirit.
He’s an overseas Chinese,
Captain of the cheerleading squad.
The homeland that has out an order
For his arrest, sees him on T. V.,
Feeling a little resigned,
Not knowing whether to laugh or cry.