Two Poems by Yang Lingye
translated by Lloyd Haft[1]
(1)
To Accompany the Ink-Wash
Painting “Looking for the Plum Blossom in a
Dream”
like a gentle sleeve
still bearing traces of snow
exuding a fragrance of last night’s wine
scattered flower shadows
printed with waves of subtle scent:
who disturbed them
and splashed them on a scroll of floating
ink?
on far-off Orphan Hill
the man who calls the cranes his only
children
has wandered off and not yet returned
leaving the cold of countless trees
for the mountain gods who keep lonely vigil
and can that sentimental poet He Xun
go back now, South of the River
and lie dead drunk in the Eastern Pavilion?
at dreamland’s boundary no doubt
the path is blocked by clouds
ask the pines the bamboos
what it is they’re surrounding
a sudden shiver
and the body that awakens is arrayed
in snow nor blossom
(2)
Melting Away
clouds drifting by overhead
the swimmer in the human sea has lost all
bearings
just flotsam floating east west as it goes
knowing no end of the ocean
boundary
of sky
what remains is a lone body
robed in common cloth
keening along with the wind
now and then imprinted by flying dust
with memories of another day
like commas marking lines
of an unread dynastic history
the throat of a beggar in the market place
though hoarse with long thirst
keeps loyally crying
in diminished rhythms
a blurred final phrase
why did they melt away
the names written in snowflakes
every cold brush-stroke
a prototype of sculpted ice
and even the thumping heart has turned
to a puddle
[1] First published in Renditions
No. 39 (Spring 1993), pp. 108-109.
For other poems by Yang Lingye, see
the January 2013 archive on this blog.
