The Late Poems of Meng Chiao by Meng Chiao

Author:Meng Chiao [Chiao, Meng]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780691217727
Publisher: PrincetonUP
Published: 2020-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

APRICOTS DIED YOUNG

Apricots died young in blossoms still nipples.

Frost cut them free, and their scattering made me

mourn the child I had long ago,

so I wrote this poem.

1

Don’t fondle these pearls. O hands of ice,

fondle pearls and they’re quick to fly.

And don’t cut spring short, sudden frost.

Cut spring and that blaze of beauty’s lost.

Still nipples, tiny blossoms fall in tatters

tinged pure as a child’s robes long ago.

I gather them, never filling my hands,

and at dusk, grief empty, return home.

2

Picking stars off the ground empty,

no blossoms left to gaze at in trees,

it’s all grief and sorrow: a lone old

man grief, a childless home sorrow.

We’re nothing like plunging ducks,

or crows gathering twigs for a nest:

wave-battered ducklings fly easily,

and little crows call proudly in wind.

Blossom and child won’t come back.

In a world emptying grief, I mourn.

3

It must be this same thread of tears

piercing the hearts of spring trees:

before blossoms opened anywhere,

flake after flake fell to the blade.

Spring’s life never lasts, it’s true,

but my lament over frost is already

impossibly deep. Instead of blossoms

bathing streams, tears bathe robes.

4

At our sons birth, the moon was dark,

and when he died, it began to shine.

Moon and child, they stole each other

away. O scarcely lived child of mine,

what’s it like, blossom after blossom,

if not endless blue heavens in lament,

sweetness falling into earthen dust,

nothing left to bloom in other times?

5

I worry footsteps may damage earth,

injure roots beneath flowering trees,

but heaven can’t understand, it’s cut

and scattered child and grandchild.

Weighted branches lost a thousand

falling blossoms. Not one flourished.

Who calls this a home for the living?

Spring colors never entered the gate.

6

Branch after branch, bitter cold frost

comes like little knives killing spring.

Once the scattering ends, every tree’s

heart is a mountain hollow howling

empty howls. All flurried color fallen,

petals fleck the ground like lit oil,

and it’s clear: all heaven-and-earth’s

ten thousand things unravel with ease.

7

Spring unfulfilled, come to nothing, I

weep, tears trailing out a dozen scars.

Lost blossoms bring butterfly flurries,

but a lost child leaves this old man

weaker still. If you’re lifeless living,

you’re the face of death death-infused.

What celestial phoenix carries prayers,

and who can knock at heaven’s gate?

8

Calamity infecting a child is natural:

blossoms mostly fail. Still, I gather

ruins of the heart, a spent old man

cradling loves debris in endless night.

What can be said once sound dies away?

And once hopes dead, song’s useless.

Old and sick– no child, no grandchild,

I stand like bundled firewood, alone.

9

Its ruin of pink blossoms seemingly

over, frost cut a last few dozen free

on breezes sighing: mouths of fish

nibbling at air over a shallow river.

Frozen tears never thaw, and no one

outlasts grief this bitter. Nothing left

here but empty shadows of lost days,

a little window of words is too large.

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