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Prairie Schooner 78.4 (2004) 93


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Two Poems

Cai Qijiao

Expectation

Translated by Edward Morin, Dennis Ding, and Fang Dai
How like its waxing cousin the forlorn
waning moon looks as it hangs in the sky;
smooching (I suspect) with the setting sun,
unbelievably creeping back at daybreak.
Its poise over the river is so striking
that a poet would feel hard put to describe it.
Don't dwell now on privation in a moon,
but finger-count to when it will be full again.


Encounter

Translated by Edward Morin, Chunjian Xue, Dennis Ding, and Fang Dai
Dancing in step close to you
I feel your soft breath waft all through me
feel you as a voluptuously blooming lotus
swaying in the summer breeze

The most worthwhile tryst fades into night
good fortune in love always arrives late
If destiny had brushed us past each other
we would no longer recall each other's faces.

Cai Qijiao's first three books of poetry were issued in the 1950's. Following government censure of his work, Cai Qijiao did not publish for twenty years. His books published since the Cultural Revolution include The Double Rainbow, Praying, Facing the Wind, Drunken Stone, and Lyric Poems.
Edward Morin is editor and co-translator of The Red Azalea: Chinese Poetry since the Cultural Revolution (U of Hawaii P). His poems have appeared in Hudson Review, Ploughshares, and Iowa Review.
Dennis Ding is co-translator of The Red Azalea: Chinese Poetry since the Cultural Revolution (U of Hawaii P). His translations of English works into Chinese appear in leading Chinese publications.
Fang Dai is co-translator of The Red Azalea: Chinese Poetry since the Cultural Revolution (U of Hawaii P) and the author of three novels, The Third Desire, The Curtain of Night, and Boasters' Room 303.
Chunjian Xue is a fiction writer living in Chicago.


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