Onlooker

Chen Du; Xisheng Chen

The suspicious odyssey of an onlooker 
Wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat in the northern summer
Is reaching its climax — sometimes punctuated by peaks
Otherwise concealed by a gloomy canyon —
And is obviously slowing down
While gradually approaching a desert

A prairie on one side and a sandy land on the other
The views bewilder him who also witnesses
A river wagging its tail and a startled lizard 
Too desperate to choose its path
Travel together, hurriedly vanishing into the distance

It is when a truck faster than a river rushes by
That I behold the onlooker, his bewilderment
Unconcealable by the shadow under his broad-brimmed straw hat
And his abruptly stopped journey
With an apex mingled with slight abjection

Sleeping with a Mirror

A white swan
(Or maybe just a similar whitish thing)
And its somewhat unreal whiteness
In an autumn heavenly lake
A place farther than Xinjiang
Are sleeping with a mirror

A massive, curved boulder with black moss
And a large heap of shining-white bird droppings
On a precipitous cliff above a great river
In the ancient wind, under the wings
Of a bird determining its flight gesture
Are sleeping with time

A snake having sloughed off its white skin in a jungle
(All these exist only in imagination)
Fruitlessly chased a hungry tiger
Lost its way back to its pit
And hence fled hurriedly out of fright
Needs to hasten to the moors before night falls
To sleep with gloomy clouds and the moon

My father and his grey hair
As well as his white bones under his dark skin
All glittering with chilling white shimmers
With nowhere to rest
And with certain indescribable melancholy
In the homeland’s dreams and mine tonight
Are sleeping with the northern mountains