Jiangchengzi
Ten years, one alive and one dead, each lost to the other in the vastness. I don't brood on it. It's just hard to forget. A lone tomb a thousand leagues away, no way to tell of the dismal loneliness. Even if we were to meet, I'm sure she wouldn't know me, dust filling my face, the hair at my temples like frost. Last night, lost in dream, I suddenly went back home. At the window to her chamber she was just then combing her hair. We looked at each other saying nothing, there were only a thousand lines of tears. I think that the most heartbreaking place over the years, on a night of bright moonlight, is that hill with its short pines.
translated by: Stephen Owen