My Brush Rings 江紹倫譯
My hair gray flowing like frosts in the wind
Lying sick on my wicker bed my feelings wing
Knowing that I need a good sleep in this spring morn
My Daoist friend tolls the morning bells softly on
Heaney’s Nobel lecture, in which he offered insights into his poetry, can be viewed at YouTube http://youtu.be/P7KzfqtL5qY
EXPOSURE
It is December in Wicklow:
Alders dripping, birches
Inheriting the last light,
The ash tree cold to look at.
A comet that was lost
Should be visible at sunset,
Those million tons of light
Like a glimmer of haws and rose-hips,
And I sometimes see a falling star.
If I could come on meteorite!
Instead, I walk through damp leaves,
Husks, the spent flukes of autumn,
Imagining a hero
On some muddy compound,
His gift like a slingstone
Whirled for the desperate.
How did I end up like this?
I often think of my friends’
Beautiful prismatic counselling
And the anvil brains of some who hate me
As I sit weighing and weighing
My responsible tristia.
For what? For the ear? For the people?
For what is said behind-backs?
Rain comes down through the alders,
Its low conducive voices
Mutter about let-downs and erosions
And yet each drop recalls
The diamond absolutes.
I am neither internee nor informer;
An inner émigré, a grown long-haired
And thoughtful; a wood-kerne
Escaped from the massacre,
Taking protective colouring
From bole and bark, feeling
Every wind that blows;
Who, blowing up these sparks
For their meagre heat, have missed
The once in a lifetime portent,
The comet’s pulsing rose.
(From “North”)
—————-
The main thing is to write
for the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lust
that imagines its haven like your hands at night
dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast.
You are fasted now, light-headed, dangerous.
Take off from here. And don’t be so earnest.
(From “Station Island”)
Today is my birthday I’m eighty
I think of my Mom giving me birth a deed mighty
It was at a time of war and sorrow
Everyday Mom said was a day borrowed
There’s the usual jubilation of a new-born to the family
The hardship of bringing me up in scarcity was not a worry
The eighty years of my experience were quite extraordinary
Wars deaths dislocation and change required adjustments many
We lived through threats struggle and hope supported by sheer ingenuity
Under my parents’ protective wings I had luck and freedom plenty
I learned more from practical challenges than schools which was intermittent
My aspiration and achievement carry the Chinese cultural imprints incessant
Read More.
My Study
Layers of books and scrolls mark encounters memorable
This quiet small room beckons ideas and people global
On-line systems enable me to access the world in finger-tips
Reading playing music and chess are delightful acts indeed
Here I listen in quietude to heavenly tunes as clouds fly
Even space limits allow my mind to roam free and wild
My Humble Abode
Dwelling in a serene environment is my habitual liking
Carefree in quietude is enjoyment knowing not days passing
Washed by rain the spider net is clean and bright
Every spring swallows return to their homestead right
I often invite neighbors to share bamboo beauties
Calling my wife to brew cups of tea finest
Calendar dates and clock hours not in my interest sphere
In solitude I sit waiting for the moon to appear
At hours two seventeen
I woke to see the sky in a web of sheen
Thunderclaps hit in an instant
Shaking my building from no distance
Terrified I turned to look
Ten more series of thunders broke
They peel and bolt
Turning me breathless fears provoked
Nature is showing its wrath
The spheres in a whirl bath Continue reading
Hours after midnight
High above dormant city-lights
Hangs a cobalt blue sky
No wind or sound
When people are in deep slumber
The world is mine to ponder Continue reading
Beneath grey clouds and pale-blue sky
Scattering patches of orange pink rise
Further up a protruding cloud is silver-lined
To complete this fascinating picture of dawn Continue reading
The East Slope 江紹倫譯
Washed by rain the east slope a beauty under moonshine
I arrive to survey the terrain people had left behind
Do not dismiss this deserted slope leading to nowhere
Here I stick my staff heavy its resonance loud and clear
