A Visit To The Old Haunt Poem by Richard Hu

This is destiny.

　　These are the lane, the pond, and the bright walls surround.

　　I shouldn't have come along with the wind, again into thy portal.

　　Two as we are, each steps we have.

　　In the winter, I dread thee, with my shivery body and slightly closed eyes.

　　Not reminiscing those days of flowing bowls and songs.

　　Emptying the goblet, I am drunk and frozen for eons.

　　The farewell forsaken, I look upward along the echo beneath the fretted shines.

　　There are the flaring patio, tidy veranda and shady corners.

　　But where are we?

　　I fear walking upstairs in the North, touching past days of yore.

　　No more do I have to wave goodbye, I wander, shuffling behind.

　　Age, rust, are thine.

　　Perhaps wilt thou too pursue the freedom?

　　And I, we, the haunting,

　　Are bitter to part.

　　Maybe,

　　Thou, art thee still.

　　Are we, still the very us?