by Ha Jin
Now we have our house, our lawn and woods,
the moonlight on our driveway white like frost.
Turkeys and deer frequent our backyard.
But none of these could make a home
without your nurturing.
A VISITOR
Again snow covers New England.
There will be no school tomorrow
and we won’t go to work.
At night trucks drone
on the distant roads,
spraying sand and salt.
More snow brings more business
to the plowing workers —
it’s their season of harvest.
This morning I open my curtains
and find footprints scattered in my yard.
They were left behind by a deer,
who must have lingered here for a long time.
Again I think of you.
You often said you’d go to Florida
where there is a lot of sunlight
and no snow. Now you have gone
to another place where
there is no winter or storm,
though I’m not sure whether you are lonesome.
THE ONE FOLLOWING YOU
Because of you, that coastal city
has appeared on my map.
In my mind it’s no longer
a fishing village far away.
Every morning I wake
to follow you on the bus to work,
past the bay enclosed in mist
and through a long tunnel into town.
We then walk along the street shaded by maples,
enter a gate to a schoolhouse,
and finally stand before a room of children.
You open a textbook and read to them
legends of triumph and updated fables.
You also draw on the chalkboard
a tomorrow that might be more colorful.
Whether you know it or not,
whether you like it or not,
you always bring along
an invisible guard.
SURPRISE
Don’t strain your mind
to produce another surprise for her.
Love, won that way, is hard to sustain
and soon you’ll find yourself exhausted.
More terrible, someday
you might be disgusted with yourself,
feeling you have wasted your life
without achieving anything.
Above all, you mustn’t lose your bearings.
Don’t follow others to seek
excitement or a so-called quality life.
What’s invaluable in love is to help
each other reach the end of a long road.
Although every day seems the same,
love resides in the ordinary.
AN IDEAL LIFE
How I long for an unoccupied life.
I can sleep in on weekdays,
then go to Starbucks to read newspapers
and chat with friends, cracking jokes.
There’s no need to hurry to work
or analyze the smiles
of my boss and clients,
though people say I’m too lazy,
staying home all the time and kept by my wife.
I often ask myself:
why must I be the mainstay
of my household? I struggle
outside in the world. I try to serve
my children, satisfy my wife.
You don’t have to live so hard.
You don’t need to carry on your bloodline.
You can live with ease and die
alone, at your own pace.
But at night I often hear a voice
whisper, tickling my ear:
“There’s no meaning in an effortless life —
you came into this world
just to strive into another self.”
TWO IMAGES
In my dreams you wear the army
uniform, a belt, and knee-high boots.
Your pair of short braids jumps a little
as you stride around fearlessly.
In a husky voice you give orders
while shells burst like blossoms far away.
People say you are a born general.
In reality you look like an elegant lady.
Your lilac skirt floats across
the quiet plaza before a church.
Your heels knock the stone slabs
washed glossy by a spring shower.
Your voice is the wings of doves
waving in the sunshine.
Your figure draws so many admiring eyes.
Which one of them are you —
a fierce officer or a refined lady?
I hope you are neither.
APRIL
Again it’s the season when
the new and the old are both
trembling. From the lake in the woods
come fits of frogs’ cries
together with scattered birdcalls
and the shedding of rotted branches and bark.
You used to say that before
the spring you would send me
a garden of blossoms. Now
winter is gone, but for you,
spring is still an ocean away.
Home on the Road
A SNOWSTORM
Three feet of snow covers the north,
bringing five states to a standstill:
stores, schools, airports, all are closed.
Only plow trucks fill the streets.
At last we can stay home for a day.
Yesterday before leaving work
we wished each other a peaceful break:
Be careful when you dig out —
don’t hurt your back or arms.
We’re grateful to the bad weather
that allows us a day’s rest.
But it’s not yet eight in the morning
and my phone begins to ring.
So many calls keep coming in,
fundraising or telemarketing:
a foundation for children’s education,
a breast cancer research institute,
a veterans’ service center,
a wireless company, an insurance agency,
even the fire station and town police who are
doing a survey of the residents.
Heavens, so many people busy themselves
unwilling to take a break.
A NEW HOPE
Yesterday at noon we stopped
at the square to bother
the fat snowman, twisting his nose,
a big carrot, and poking his eyes,
a pair of batteries. Each of us slapped him
a couple of times, to break his heart
so he wouldn’t dare come to Boston again,
would take away the snowbanks
that were almost 6 feet high.
But this morning the TV announced
that it has snowed 102 inches to date —
with 5 more inches, it will break the record.
All of a sudden we got excited again,
chatting about the imminent snowstorm
and hoping it will be heavy enough.
IN THE SPRINGTIME
Still you should praise the spring,
although it’s a miserable season
for you. It revives the memories
that never die —
all the fields to be sown,
the endless sweating with painful limbs,
sleeping with clothes on at night,
rising before daybreak
to follow others to welcome a dry spring
with a hoe or a shoulder pole.
Here spring is another sight.
On the town green
toddlers wave their plump arms,
the white soles of their feet following
pigeons and geese on the grass.
But whenever you go out
you can�
��t stop sneezing,
your eyes itchy with tears,
your nose red and swollen.
Only through a window can you watch
the kids and their mothers at play.
In the kitchen the radio is loud.
The show host has been talking happily
with callers, so many of them phoning in
to praise such a gorgeous day.
True, your body rejects this spring,
but still you must learn to praise.
Praise everything burgeoning with life,
the worms that come out for sunlight,
the pollen that gives you hay fever,
the snails drunk with rainwater,
the houses that begin to take shape.
TOADS
You ought to admire the toads’ vitality.
In a stream or a sewer
they can live, often wild with joy.
In the early spring they croak with gusto,
giving you the illusion that large flocks
of ducks and geese are paddling nearby.
Look, they leap around
like little birds attempting flight,
though they have no wings.
Neither do they have a waist,
but they all swagger when they walk.
If they sit, they look like ministatues
of Buddha, too dignified to rise.
In fact, they can never stand up.
A TUG OF WAR
Little wren, I know you love
the eaves above my door,
but you can’t build here.
You trash the place
and even shit on the door handle,
soiling my hand again.
Again I sweep away your embryo
of a nest. You’ll return
to restart your project.
Little rascal, I won’t let you
pile mud and grass here.
Even friends cannot share everything.
There are eaves everywhere.
Why are you so determined
to settle above my door?
COPYING CHARACTERS
See, here’re your brush and copybook.
From now on you must practice calligraphy —
copy four or five pages every day.
You must be able not just to speak Chinese
but also to inscribe it.
Handsome handwriting
ensures a bright future.
Every weekend you make me
go to the Chinese school.
I need more time for my homework in
science and history and also
have to read novels and plays in English.
I have no time for copying characters.
If you go on distracting me like this,
I might have to repeat seventh grade.
Don’t give us such an excuse.
You must inscribe characters more often.
Once you start something
you must see it through.
If you cannot write Chinese,
you will be like a disabled person
when we go back to live in Tianjin.
Now I can see why Chinese
are so good at making knockoffs.
A couple of guys at my school
always copy characters at home.
In every class they can’t stop
copying each other’s homework.
I don’t want to be like those copycats
who have practiced duplication since childhood.
I want to create, create, and create.
A SMALL BOAT
I left a boat on the Neuse,
in the middle of the broad river.
Now fish no longer swim freely;
the river divides here, up and down,
while the distant hills no longer look wild.
It is a boat made of fiberglass,
moored in the waves
so birds passing by can rest on it,
knowing it’s not an island
or a floating secret.
The forests and grassland on the banks
shift, as if to form
a new rhythm with the boat,
though it’s not something
that will stay long on the Neuse.
CHOICE OF HOMETOWN
It’s so easy for you
to choose your hometown,
a city where I am a refugee.
You want to take root here
and stop wandering with me.
You are already grown
and probably know I’m close to
my journey’s end — from now on
I might move only in place.
I once thought you would be like me
sailing out for another sea,
but now you have your own coast,
unwilling to depart anymore.
I never imagined that I, rootless,
could give you root.
Perhaps it’s unavoidable that
this generation scrambles through hardships
just to provide the next generation
with choices and hopes.
Indeed, every hometown
was once foreign to one’s ancestors.
I remember a wise man saying,
“Blessed are those who have never left home
to open space for their children
and who can live and die in the same place
without needing a story
or exposing themselves to injury.”
WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT
There are many things,
whether you like them
or not, that you must do.
Even your birth proved
a kind of reluctance.
Your parents were having great fun
but got carried away,
and soon your mother found
herself pregnant. Then they argued
for a long time about whether to keep
the baby. They changed
their minds back and forth,
but finally decided
to allow you into this world.
Don’t work yourself up.
What I said is absolutely true.
If you don’t believe me
you can go ask your mother.
Actually, you shouldn’t be too concerned.
There’s no need to find out
whether you were an accident
who threw your parents into a crisis.
What’s essential is that they chose
the effort to raise you and let their love
for you enfold themselves
body and soul, and let your existence
define the boundary
of their happiness and stress.
Don’t talk again about having your own way.
You must do what you should do,
whether you like it or not.
THE LOST MOON
Like you, I too lost my moon.
Wide-eyed, I took a smiling face
to be the source of all light and hope
which led me into a gloomy forest.
Since then, I can no longer see
the wonders in the sky.
However hard I trudge and search,
I cannot find the hills I have climbed.
Now, there’s no difference between day and night
— I spend them on my computer and cell phone.
In fact, I knew long ago that
the smiling face was a mere mirage,
yet I can no longer gaze up at the moon
as my ancestors did
from horseback by the roadside
to relay a word home or to a friend.
I have landed in a place
my ancestors never heard of —
I need to grow a new backbone.
Echoes from Far Away
THE CAGE
I used to have a beautiful cage
that flew around day and night.
Its d
oor opened and closed
showing how comfortable
and safe it was inside —
I should ride it through the clouds,
accepting the space within the cage
and working hard with others
to carry out a common dream.
That way, I could live an easy life
and leave behind many types of praise,
although I would have no other story.
Like a colored cloud, the cage
has wheeled around for decades.
It still looks gorgeous, like new,
but I am fully grown, too big
to get into it anymore.
I can board it only in my dreams.
ALL YOU HAVE IS A COUNTRY
You are so poor that all you have is a country.
Whenever you open your mouth
you talk about the country
to which you can no longer return.
China is a giant shield that you use
to conceal your cowardice and to preempt