The Curtain of Pearls
(freely from Wang Chang Ling)


Stopping the piano, he undraws the curtains,
hoping for the cool night to console a perplexed heart.

But only a livid moon streamed in. His face
in his arms, he remembers sitting in the garden

and how that gentle voice would come drifting to him
like the noontime glimmer of falling rain.


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In the 90s I found a slender volume of Chinese classical poems translated by various people and there was this piece by Wang I liked especially. My transliteration took on many emanations, straight and otherwise, till it finally ended with this one you see here.