So pure white is the lotus pond is under the moon.
So vivid is the moonlight in waves.
I'm standing in the desert of my own,
seeing him running away and returning home.
He cuts his life into two pieces, leaving me confused
between an early morning and a dusk
and whether it is the smoke on his body or the summer wind
from under the sludge, passing the lotus leaves.
Finished years make me calm.
When a storm comes, not a drop of water is caught on a lotus leaf.
Sometimes I saw, yet my eyes cast onto the lotus pond
means nothing but to see, for we are so close to daytime,
for every time he stoops, he seems more pious, more like that man
reminding me to close my eyes, and in my tears of hesitation
he strips from my body the moonlight
layer after layer.
About the author:
Xi Xia is a poet from Guangxi province. She is now living in Beijing.