Monday, January 06, 2020
AFTER THE CHINESE MASTERS
AFTER YANG WAN-LI'S
"STANZA WRITTEN IN JEST"
The flowers
like bright coins
paid to poets,
which buy them
only grief.
~
ON TWO LINES
BY YANG WAN-LI
Sound of a flute
in the empty mountains--
breath of the tiger.
~
ON TWO LINES FROM
YANG WAN-LI'S
'SONGS OF DEPRESSION'
I chant my new poems
then fall to sleep.
I am a butterfly
chasing the wind.
~
AFTER SOME LINES
BY KU-T'AI-CH'ING
Autumn comes
and my grief
comes with it.
The waning moon.
My cold bed.
~
AFTER FIVE LINES
BY HSIU CH'I-CHI
I have returned
to farming.
Why pretend to be
anyone else?
These trees are my friends.
These birds, the flowers.
~
