Translated by Donald Finkel and Jenshang

You believed in your own story,
Then climbed inside it-
A turquoise flower,
You gazed past ailing trees,
Past crumbling walls and rusty railings.
Your least gesture beckoned a constellation
of wild vetch, grasshoppers, and stars
to sweep you into immaculate distances.
 
The heart may be tiny
but the world’s enormous.
 
And the people in turn believe -
in pine trees after rain,
ten thousand tiny suns, a mulberry branch
bent over water like a fishing-rod,
a cloud tangled in the tail of a kite.
Shaking off dust, in silver voices
ten thouand memories sing from your dream.
 
The world may be tiny
But the heart’s enormous.