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Yan Li - China Translated into English by Denis Mair - USA
Marvelous Encounter
(for World Poetry Day)
At spring’s first blush we walk in the riverside park Because my forebears long ago discovered Language is best for reciting when It first droops from the wands of willows Even rarer is this encounter with World Poetry Day Though perhaps we cannot call this a red letter day Spring sunlight has come with regally folded arms Here and there we catch glimpses Those patches of darkness with no time to hide Are kneeling where the sunlight found them
After Turning Sixty
How many shoulders must a man lean upon To write lines that have sufficient zing To stay in demand among many publishers? To make this happen does it take An excess of thirst for learning Or a tendency to hatch big schemes? I know that copying poems would be unseemly But to copy good manners is quite acceptable So I know that good conduct is worth copying But that cannot be done for creative works The problem after sixty is Will I be able to copy from myself? Can copying of conduct be the kind of copying That will give rise to my own works?
Neighbor of the State
The hour has come to help this era Put on a pair of high-heeled shoes To give it a better view of days to come But the State has scant knowledge of the future It hardly even knows that there exists Wealth that the State cannot give a name to Yet I don’t think breaking up the collective Will usher in the civility of individuals If we have nothing to be compared with We have no way to know who we are So black will always be a neighbor of white And I must be a neighbor of the State
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