Lake Ice [Lyric Poem]

Sun-sparkles on the lake’s far end
look icy cool beneath blue skies,
but Winter shivers, I suspend,
because late Spring is telling lies.

“Inspired by Late Spring” by Ye Cai [w/ Audio]

Sparrows cast on my desk their shadows in pair,
And willow down falls in my inkstone here and there.
Sitting by the window, I read the Book of Change,
Not knowing when has Spring gone, I only feel strange.

Note: This is the joint translation of Xu Yuanchong and Xu Ming found in the Golden Treasury of Quatrains and Octaves (a Bilingual edition of 千家诗 “Thousands of Poems”) on which they collaborated (i.e. China Publishing Group: Beijing (2008) p. 40)

Snowy Pass [Haiku]

the pass is snowy;
though low country types think it
the cusp of Summer.