Three Poems

Yi Lu

Look at the Sunset

How large, how red the setting sun
blocked by a building, it shows only a rim
I run to the study window
to see its left half
I run to the kitchen window
to see its right half
I run to and fro in the room
thinking the sun also longs to peek at me





That Bouquet of White Flowers

that bouquet of white flowers
why so white

that bouquet of white flowers
isn't that white

just because at that instant
white was white's bottom line

white above black





Because There is Awakening

plainly    for a few hours
the brain is empty

since when
even emptiness is gone

because there is awakening
I know that is sleep

insomnia was once
a small cache of weapons
wrestling in the edgeless dark

emptiness a fruit that life breeds painfully and finely

one after another
bridging together . . .

translated from the Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain