Thread Golden
In the fabric of the night
A golden thread grew fearsome bright
A blazing thread whose needle true
Touched my heart by passing through,
An unseen hand allows it flight
To pass again into the night
I cannot see, I do not know
Where the hand and she will go
Passport
I look but do not see
The little book
That is me,
I look but do not find
The list that I have lost
And I am here alone
For those I love have gone
Alone I count the cost
護照 (Chinese translation by Polly Ho)
我望但沒看
那本小書
那是我，
我望但找不到
我遺失的那張名單
我獨個兒在這裡
因為我所愛的都已離去
我獨個兒計算那代價
Yang and Yin
In our home there’s too much Yang
Which springs up from its morning bed
And in out home there’s too much Yin
Not that you would ever know
陽和陰
在我們家中有太多的陽
由早晨的床躍起
以及在我們家中有太多的陰
你永不會知道
Elements
What is it with a woman
When her body turns to flame,
And how to catch that fire
In the coolness of a name?
Ah, to be Zheng, words like water!
Lips, liquescent, laughter
And those shimmering wings
‘Folded in a loose shirt’.
My black-eared kite
Cannot fall from grace
For she doesn’t know her airy loft
Or her point in space.
Perhaps I am content
To fall upon design:
We both make what we can and will
While we have the time
**The quoted line is from the poem “Wings of Summer” by Zheng Danyi
Left to Write
The night is but a tympanum
My toes are mallets and
I might as well be Sousa
When he’s striking up the band
I had wanted pen and paper
For that quick trip in the night
To find some light to think by
And a nook in which to write
But my timid tipping toe
Just met that wooden tile
Whose fragile back chose to crack
And echo for a mile
And the glass my fingers tickled
On that table in the gloom
Has met its fate and shall await
Its meeting with the broom
And my wife pretends she is asleep
And I pretend it too
For to wake her in this manner
Is a terrible thing to do
So finally with pen in hand
And sanctuary and light
Comes the moment I discover
I have nothing left to write
Archangel
The lady in the lift,
When I gingerly inquired,
Said she hadn’t been herself for days
And that she has been tired
The taxi driver, too,
With his pedal to the floor,
Had drifted off in Cantonese
Then began to snore
And the people of the city
Were caught or so it seems
In the fullness of their coffee
And the steam of morning dreams
But the lady in the corner shop
Began to speak to me
Of Han and Qin and early Wei
Of Zhou and Shang and Qi
And in the canter of her voice
A Tang horse made of clay
Hung in dust of Tang kilns fired
In breath of yesterday
Now we keep a darkware vase,
A Ming whose mirror glaze
Reflects on what we are today
And were in ancient days
And when I say we ‘keep’ it
Really it keeps us
As stewards of moments
From which we quickly pass
A Good Time Had by All
Last night I got quite blithered,
Though I think I can’t be sure,
But the words I spouted roughly
Loosely splashed about the floor
And at 2 o’clock I think it was
I spat them out again
As I rattled packet reason
In the railing of the wind
Then all the words I’d ever known
Marched steadfast out the door
To disown their spattered utterer
And leave him feeling sore
And the thoughts that did attend them
With their noses in the air
Left the scene quite smartly
Leaving all the stools quite spare
And the fool who’s spoken most
And almost kissed the very floor
Was the fool whose very drinking
Left his head so bloody sore
And the fool that uttered words
That he has uttered all the time
Was the one who drained the dregs
From the glass that I call mine.
