You laugh without sound,
You leave with no trace;
Yet the still candle of my heart
Flickers and moves
Are you cloud?
Five years of autumn wind.
You cry with no noise;
Yet the bright moon of my spirit
Dims and darkens
Are you wind?
Fifth Autumn
By finger-count, this year's autumn is the fifth autumn,
My hand clenches into an angry fist ...
Five years of autumn wind, how many youthful heads have they blown white?
Five years of autumn rain, how much longing have they dribbled away?
How many lofty dreams have been drenched with putrid wine?
How many proud bones have been buried in some barren hill?
How many priceless furs have five years turned to tattered rags?
How many tattered rags to priceless furs?
How many men in these five years have become haggard and worn?
How many tall mansions have others built?
The sky-high moon has waxed and waned full sixty times,
Lighting our homeless wandering way;
Full twenty times have flowers bloomed and withered,
Yet cannot bear away our joy and pain.
Bounties unrequited, hatreds unavenged, coiled tightly round my heart;
One floor each year and on my heart has risen a full five-stories;
I stand on the fifth floor edge tears, as libation instead of wine,
Sprinkled by the wind: a far-off sacrifice to my homeland rivers and hills!
By finger-count this year's autumn is the fifth autumn,
My hand clenches into an angry fist…
-- 1953 Autumn --
Laughter
My child laughs; his laughter
Proud, without restraint,
Like his grandfather's, my father.
My father used to laugh like this.
The way my child now laughs;
And I, I cannot laugh like they.
Between the laughter of two generations,
My laughter, low and darkly cold,
Like a lonely valley between two mountains.
Actuality is my world, now is my generation,
Here, there is not much for laughter,
Unlike the past of my father, the future of my child.
I laugh coldly at fate, fiercely at enemies,
At the boundless misery of Asia,
I laugh bitterly...
(Translated by Nancy Ing)