Chinese Women’s Poetry

Third in a series

Please refer to the post on 30.4.2023

Ice Sculptures

Warm hearts

In bitter cold of the North

Carved these sculptures

That’s why they are so beautiful

Suddenly I realize that

Through love and coaxing of this harsh cold

Even the frail water

Can stand up firm and strong

And in different forms and poses

Manifest the miracle of life.

When spring comes

They will melt

But they will not sigh in their retreat

But they have stood with pride.

Happily they came

Happily now they depart

Oh let the Northland

Make me into a sculpture too  –

Into one innocent fawn,

Into a carefree little fish,

Into a peacock or swallow

Though one day I would vanish

Let me vanish in the spring

Quoted from Julia C. Lin (transl.):  Women of the Red Plain    An Anthology of contemporary Chinese women’s poetry.  Penguin Books.  1992.

www.willwilltravel.wordpress.com

Bridgewater, Somerset West

June, 2023 

Frozen Into …

My pain is a hopeless block of ice

Frozen into transparency only by its despair

And in whose dispassionate clarity

The roaming eyes of yearning and hope find peace

If you see it, my friend, don’t ever touch it.

What it fears most is the warmth of your hand

And I would not have it melt gently away

Because it has frozen in despair my first innocence.

•  Lu Ping  (1949 –    )