HOME AGAIN AMONG FIELDS AND GARDENS

1

Nothing like all the others, even as a child,

rooted in such love for hills and mountains,

I stumbled into their net of dust, that one

departure a blunder lasting thirteen years.

But a tethered bird longs for its old forest,

and a pond fish its deep waters—so now,

my southern outlands cleared, I nurture

simplicity among these fields and gardens,

home again. I’ve got nearly two acres here,

and four or five rooms in our thatch hut,

elms and willows shading the eaves in back,

and in front, peach and plum spread wide.

Villages lost across mist-and-haze distances,

kitchen smoke drifting wide-open country,

dogs bark deep among back roads out here,

and roosters crow from mulberry treetops.

No confusion within these gates, no dust,

my empty home harbors idleness to spare.

After so long caged in that trap, I’ve come

back again to occurrence appearing of itself.

2

So little here beyond involves people.

Visitors to my meager lane rare, thorn-

bramble gate closed all day, this empty

home cuts dust-filled thoughts short.

And day after day, coming and going

on overgrown paths, I meet neighbors

without confusion: we only talk about

how the crops are doing, nothing more.

Mine grow taller each day, and I open

more fields, but I can’t stop worrying:

come frost or sleet, and it’s all tatters

torn down like so much tangled brush.

4

Years never walking mountains and lakes

gone, elated again among forests and fields,

I take our children by the hand and set out

through woods and abandoned farmlands.

Soon, we’re walking around aimlessly amid

gravemounds and houses deserted long ago,

their wells and kitchen stoves still standing

among broken-down bamboo and mulberry.

Someone’s out gathering firewood, so I ask

where these people, all these people, went.

Turning toward me, he says: Nothing’s left

once you’re dead and gone, nothing. Wait

a single generation and, court or market,

every last face is new. It’s true, of course.

Life’s its own mirage of change. And it ends

returned into all empty absence. What else?