This land of ancients grows on me
Like a soft moss, damp-oozed in time,
Sad breezes churn each soul, unfree,
And sweep me over, like some tide.
Strange voices echo from dim pasts
Long littered with dead Mandarins
I hear, I understand them less
But feel their presence in old sins.
While grace and beauty walk each street
As daughters fan their coal-black hair
The future calls to them, at last
And the world waits, to meet them there.
25 October 2005
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
A friend of mine went to China, ostensibly for a year, to teach english and four years hence he has yet to return. He fell in love. Not with any one particular person but with the country and its people. I have sent him this poem. It says better than I ever could why it is I understand his staying.