Three Poems

RISING AT DAWN (After OU YANG HSIU)

In the darkness I see little.
The moon is stuck to
the sky by a nail.
I hear distant thunder,
as if stars were breaking.
I rise from my bed.
I stare at the mirror.
I no longer know my face.
I’m now seventy-eight.
My hair is white.
I’m a frightening sight.
My life is only memories
of the distant past.
And they will not last.

 

THE STARS LOOK DOWN (After CHU SHU CHEN)

Tonight the moon looks to me
like an ancient scholar,
whose mind is unfulfilled.
I think dark days lie ahead.
A confusing sonata of stars
circles over my bed.
A pigeon disappears into
the jaws of a nasty sky.
Clouds breathe like vagabonds,
who have traveled for years,
but lost their way.
The night surrounds me.
The moon turns to clay.
I stare at it as at
some flower of stone,
which can never bloom,
but will not fade away.

 

THE NIGHT SKY (After LI PO)

The night is purposeless.
A black moon
supplants a black sky.
Do sparrows wonder why?

There is nothing to see,
but a foolish moon.
It arrives and trips
over itself in the gloom.

When I do see a star,
as I sip a cup of tea,
I am not optimistic.
What is that star to me?
 
 

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