You might not have noticed the leaves
walking in the air.
Being soft green is one step,
and withered and yellow the other.
You move back and forth beneath a tree until a leaf falls.
Fallen leaves swirl in the autumn wind.
You look up to see a changed sky.
Birds from nowhere perch on branches
once covered with leaves.
In the evening, at midnight,
the sounds of leaves walking are all around on earth.
They run from under the trees to the feet of walls.
They gather and disperse.
How they like the people driven desperate,
who walk along,
and disappear at the end of the road.
About the author:
Zhihao Zhang is a much celebrated Chinese poet. He has published seven poetry anthologies and a number of essay collections. Zhang is the winner of many literary prizes, including the People's Literature Award, the Annual Poet of the Chinese literary Media Award, and the Chen Ziang Poetry Prize. Zhang is now a professional writer of Chinese Writers Association of Wuhan City and the executive editor-in-chief of Chinese Poetry.