Sample Poems: Volume 10

CHINESE POEMS (Calligraphy and English Translation)

Huang Nupo
Translated by: Wu Keming
Edited by: Susan Roney-O'Brien

Untitled

I give you this gold autumn leaf
for remembrance.
Trace its center vein for dreams.
Carry it with you.

At the ends of the earth, look!
I am leaf.
Once we leaned together wordless.

Huang Nupo
Translated by: Wu Keming
Edited by: Susan Roney-O'Brien

Untitled

i am
soft breeze      floating cloud
shooting star
without prominent family
or eternal life

i am
firefly      singing cicada
blown seeds of dandelion
so delicate i defy winds



Du Mu (A.D. 803 - 852, Tang Dynasty)
Translated by: Wu Keming
Edited by: Rodger Martin

Gazing Far Afield

Up the winding, rocking path
I climb the cold mountain and discover
Houses peek-a-boo amid the swirling white clouds.
Later, I halt the ox-cart and look down
At the autumn maple woods, their leaves
Redder than spring flowers.




Zhen Banqiao (1697-1765, a poet and painter, Qing Dynasty)
Translated by: Wu Keming
Edited by: Rodger Martin

Bamboo and Rock
Refuse to surrender
Their place atop green mountains.
The bamboo root among the rocks
And though the rains slash
And the winds howl, they remain firm.
No blast, though the four corners
of the compass shriek, can subdue them



Wang Jia-xin
Translated by: Zhang Ziqing
Edited by: Michael True

Chinese Paintings
Landscape

Not hermit nor demigod,
You sit with all forgotten
Amid the mountain woods
Like a rock which stands out.

The pass has long disappeared.
The cane you casually put aside
has grown into a stretch of sparse woods.

A thousand autumns are thus gone,
And who can knock at the door of time
To wake you up from the fram of painting?



Wang Jia-xin
Translated by: Zhang Ziqing
Edited by: Michael True

Chinese Paintings
Mooring at Dusk

From the setting sun a small boat floats toward me
And after a turn, is anchored at a mountain town
In the darkening evening when mist is rising....

Let the boat, tied to the evening breeze,
Rock more lightly, and for our inwoard joy,
Dear painter, please spread more of dream-like ink water.

Then night falls. Faintly visible in the dusk
The boatman, a cup in his hand,
Begins to propose a toast
To a first light on the shore.