Departure

 

After tonight, what’s left of you is you

moving into my dream. Outside, the horse hooves

stamping the ground, the dust moves.

No sorrowful songs for me unless I am drunk.

I am drunk. Forgive me that I couldn’t bear

to see you off, vanishing with the sun.

Alone with the west wind and the moon.

Alone listening to the pipa sobbing, its pegbox

carved as a phoenix. Listen, crying bird,

to live without this sadness is to see the mountain

without its weight, rivers without depth.