Shaojun Li Poems

Nightfall, time for dinner.
I go out to the woods, calling my old father.
The night is seeping through little by little, the darkness diffuses
like ink on rice paper.
...

In my dream, a call arising from the inside of a mansion of my hometown
Woke me up at a small hotel in a distant foreign land
O, it's mid-autumn again, and getting cooler
The autumn wind carried me back to the slate path in front of the mansion
...

She sat in the center, the stars dipped in the wild
Grass shrimp, crabs and eels danced in the palace
Whales were the pilot troops, seagulls showed up in riding waves
The curtain was up, the sky was full of bright stars
...

Nihilists in the world are rioting, gesturing
From London to New York, from Europe to the Americas
The new Spring of Prague was launched at the heart of capitalism
Evolved into cell phone messages, Twitter and Weibo uprisings
...

At dusk, time for dinner
I went out to call my old father walking in the woods

The night color was saturating little by little
...

Under the tree, we chatted about our dreams
You said you would write biographies for the mountains, and chronicles for the water

For me, I just wished to shoot a portrait album of the clouds
...

Nostalgia for Snow
Translated by Peter Jingcheng Xu
...

Talking about our wishes under the tree
You say, you will write a biography of mountains and waters.

But I love only to take pictures of clouds
...

The tranquility of this small place is in its bone:
the spring water runs in the river, flagstones paved along the alley,
vines and weeds climb the fence, and a bird hops on the wall.
All have tranquility in them.
...

A few wooden cabins.
A small pool of light.
Small as an ant, I'm stranded in this nameless way station
in the depths of Hulunbeier grasslands,
...