Fields in the North

Where birdcalls are lost in silence

Plummy sorghum kernels exude a motherly bounty

Incisive tips of every corn leaf droop

Pulse of my blood circulates

In the South outside my skin

To such remote places

In a distant grove, an apple falls

As soundless as a dewdrop

There my native ground is found

Calm and gentle like a lake beneath ice

And motionless twilight steeps

In an ancient well, wherein the silence

Knowing no bounds   

Enters into my bones

Life becomes and does not become this landscape

And thus remains a tranquil cocoon

Even if it drifts to other waters

The language of autumn takes birth in stillness

Written in 1987

Translated by Cao Sheng and David Axelrod