To Little Yellow Chick [Poems]

Like duckweed drifting, you suddenly entered my humble gate,
Coming and going in such haste, there was no time for warmth to stay.
Fate was too shallow to keep the shadow of your yellow feathers,
Leaving only my longing tied to the mossy traces you left behind.
Master Tao long ago understood the cycle of life and death,
Yet like a night-blooming flower, we vainly mourn a soul that fades from dawn to dusk.
We are but ordinary people, unable to reach that state of transcendence –
Tossing in the great waves of nature, still bound by joy and fear.

赠小黄鸡

萍踪倏忽入柴门，来去匆匆未及温。
缘浅难留黄羽影，情长空系绿苔痕。
陶公早悟死生理，昙影空嗟朝暮魂。
我辈凡心终未达，大化浪中喜惧存。

Note

“Master Tao” refers to Tao Yuanming. He advocated the concept of “the dissolution of both body and soul,” believing that people should follow nature and accept death with equanimity, while opposing the then-prevalent customs of seeking immortality and lavish funerals. He once wrote, “Where there is life, there must be death; an early end does not mean a life cut short.” Through his series of poems Form, Shadow, and Spirit and Imitations of Elegies, he expressed his open-minded attitude of “letting myself be carried along by the great transformations of nature, neither rejoicing nor fearing.”