Bei Ling

Caress You With My Years

Falling like dreams do, open
at night, the land is like an uncoiled spring
stone and soil tumble down the hillside
refugees flee with the wind
Oh, clench-fisted weather
You embrace me with your weariness
like a certain fragility
filling a fine dress

A generation disappears
Wings bearing its burden of dreams droop
Its descent, no less than the setting sun,
Sounds about the ruins

Old world,
I caress you with my years
Touch you for glorious poems

[Translated from the Chinese by Wang Rong and Anastasios Kozaitis]

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