Cooking beans over a stalk fire,
beans are weeping in the boiler:
Beans and stalks from one root,
why should we kill each other!

Translation by Yuemin He

We present this work in honor of Dragon Boat Day.

 

I swim in that long river
And rest on its bank.
I climb that high hillcrest
And cut the wild thorn.
Alas! I journey afar,
Alone I travel, in utter solitude.
I look up at that temperate wind
And shed tears like the rain.

 

Translation by Stephen Owen and Wendy Schwartz