Alongside the stairs of stone,

Next to a smear of brilliant, verdant moss.

Patches of watermarks,

Shapes like palms and palms of maple leaves--

They seem like what refuses to be forgotten

Never will disappear;

Wounds and scars of one's life,

Despite how they hide beneath the verdant winter moss.

With an intention or no, always revealing

To this world a message:

Life once as fiery as the maple

Forever scorches and brands one's memory.

But every time we met, why did we

Know certainly only the following departure?

Why after departure was there only the uncertain

Next meeting?

Why does fate hold everything?

Why the entanglement in

Such obvious, bitter love?

Is it necessary to evade

Offerings of obvious protection and happiness?

Did you have to postpone your love for a middle-aged man

To await pity, to give it to his white hairs?

To wait until the best poem was composed?

Why does love need two identities,

But one status?

"I bring with me a bosom of appreciation and anticipation

To give you light and warmth,

I secretly pondered,

It was such a conflicting, a difficult matter

For a shy, dignified you to come see me from far away,

You must have decided and undecided--

To come, not to come.

Though I treasure every past moment,

And anticipate each from the future,

Yet what you wrestle in shyness right now

Is how to break a promise."

"Why does remorse lengthen itself in your deep sigh?

Why do hesitant, dreamy eyes always mark your face?

Why is it that, were there love,

It never should be between two cities?

When the country crumbles,

Shouldn't we bear the survivors' contrition?

Why did you have to wait all these long years,

As you have waited for the best poet

Before choosing me?

But in countless cold evenings at the academy,

Hands pushing open the door makes such a dreary gesture

It's already night, but no knowing night.

It's loneliness, but keep fearing loneliness

And becoming sorrowful in loneliness,

Even refusing loneliness!

You raised your head to look around.

Falling leaves fluttering and dancing,

Leaves clamoring on the ground;

But no one there beside you

Circled her left hand around your right arm,

The wind kept blowing,

The rain drizzled.

You lowered your head and walked alone.

With no one's notice,

No one's respect,

No one's recognition.

You are one of the many fallen maple leaves,

In scarlet, blood-stained color;

This is China's pain hidden in her heart,

The drifting in a foreign land,

And leaving all causes to the determinism of autumn.

Perhaps this is really the joy and sorrow of a middle-aged man;

The bright spring days

Forever wait to belong to youngsters.

Everyone must have budded, blossomed, and become green,

Must have once so eagerly stretched hands out to the blue;

But now comes the stage of the maple leaf watermarks:

"If it were loneliness,

It would forever be loneliness."

There is a slight sigh,

Then, both hands tightly to the lapels,

You disappear in a hurried night, rain, and wind.

--Original poem in Chinese,

translated by Chang Ts'o. (Dominic Cheung)

Chang Ts'o: Originally named Dominic Cheung, he was born in Hui-yang County of Kwangtung Province in 1943. He received his B.A. from the Department of Western Languages and Literature at National Chengchi University, his M.A. in the Department of English at Brigham Young University, his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington, Seattle. Currently a Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, he has been visiting professor at both Chengchi and Sun Yat-sen Universities. He has authored over twenty works in English and Chinese. He is most famous for poetry, and has established his own style of narration and expression combining gentleness and smoothness with vigor and strength. His recent works include translations into English (The Isle Full of Noises: Modern Chinese Poetry from Taiwan, published by Columbia University Press), and poetry collections Faulty Sonnets, Double Jade Pendant Grievance, Drifters, and Silent Was the Spring Night. The poem, "Maple Leaf Watermarks," is taken from the book Drifters.

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Chang Ts'o