Author's note:  Another poem, this time in Chinese with an English translation.  My Chinese poetry skills are extremely limited, especially when it comes to rhyming poems, so this is a vocabulary exercise of sorts.  Note that the translation omits the AA BB (etc.) rhyme scheme of the Chinese.

河岸晨曦

晨曦走路
远日快出
早鸟愉鸣
不能留听
爷爷清道
不能留聊
已经太晚
想去河岸
前桥无人
渡桥看滨
蓝雾盖水
雾里有谁
只船夫影
过桥下静
头身都倦
也想坐船

Riverbank Dawn

Walking at dawn
The distant sun soon rises
Morning birds sing happily
I cannot stop to listen
The old man sweeps the streets
I cannot stop to chat
It is already too late
I want to go to the riverbank
The bridge ahead has no people
Crossing the bridge I look at the riverbank
A blue fog covers the water
Who is inside the fog?
Just a boatman's shadow
He passes under the bridge quietly
My head and body are both weary
I also want to ride in his boat

Author's note:  Taking a break from reviews for a bit of my own poetry.  Will write more reviews in the near future.

when month and day made seven
a life’s singular joy unraveled
its strongest bonds torn by prejudice
by
her confucian obligation
irreparable
like a mirror falling falling falling
onto unforgiving earth

the reservoir of tears held back
so long
let loose, then
flooded the quiet valley of love
the deluge, a prelude to the temblor
neither emeralds nor pearls seen in its wake
all their shining glories shuttered by the dark waters
nightmares
the swirling blackness
the words unspeakable backwards and forwards

the next day awaking to feel less
if only to not feel pain
and conjuring up a lying smile
a veil over sadness and anger
regrettable sentiment filling up an ordinary day
until the unforgiving earth
seized its moment
the sober quiet here disguised the doom afar
but the quick-moving fog of dread lent
perspective

who shall hear a dying heart amongst the dying of men?

pictures of a shattered landscape
splintered buildings like demonic teeth
the concrete tombs that should not be
the passing of children chokes the throat of the soul
the many nameless dead
as mere witness
so powerless again to stop
the agony
only free to offer some small sacrifice
could hope lost for one be yet given?

yet after the ritual of mercy
mercy remains a stranger
looking at the face of the shoe-bandit
dirtied with no caring hands together to wash him
or seeing her
a thousand echoes of her sweet laugh resound
piercing that ragged organ within the chest

a final night together
the penultimate tears
a goodbye never to say hello to another?

i can only walk
the sadness a wind at my back
i can only walk
until the end of time
i can only walk
across the unforgiving earth
i can only walk