Poetry

                       Standing            between good and evil,      between the two frozen poles,                        at last            between man and man,                  and, looking hard,      I simply cannot understand how in the world life can make both ends meet.

     There are two things you have      to worry about about her:      she opens up for you      and she closes up on you,      but you shouldn't worry      too much about it because      this is the way she is      and this is the way you are: You just shouldn't mention her name. She loves you in her…

All withers in the autumn air: wine quickly wears off: Bleak and dismal, it's always      like feelings felt at parting. At dusk, I lean on a pillar:      I don't go home; My heart breaks at the patter of wind and rain      on the green lotus.

Orioles bubble in the shade of green sophora, secluded courtyard empty this spring day noon;                  painted curtain hangs,                  golden phoenixes dance, solitary, but the embroidered screen, one stick of incense.                  Clouds in the azure sky                  have no fixed home;      in vain my dreaming soul comes and goes;…

What if time came to a stop? Surely the end would be struck dumb. Up on the hill the house where you were born is waiting for you to build it again. How and with what — bricks, wasn't it? The chimney's all you can remember: smoke vanishing in spirals like the string of a…

Here the restless voice consents to love The simple stone, The flagstones that time serves and delivers, The olive tree whose strength has the taste of dry stone. The footstep in its true peace. The restless voice Happy beneath the rocks of silence, And the infinite, indefinite reply Of the herd-bells, shore or death. Your…

I am like this dish: you can only accept me, do not try to alter or repair

trans. Russian Richard Lourie Having looked all around with an easy gaze, matting the grass as he walked that first day, he lay down in the shade of a fig tree and fell asleep, his hands behind his head. His sleep was sweet and deep and free beneath the blue peace of Eden's sky. ….