Some "We" for Neal: The Sound of Bei Dao Typing

Bei Dao in Chinese and Spanish. Let me see if I can find this poem in English...



I found it right away thanks to Google. The Poetry Foundation had the English translation by David Hinton (who did such a great job with the poet's book Forms of Distance.)


    Landscape Over Zero


it's hawk teaching song to swim
it's song tracing back to the first wind


we trade scraps of joy
enter family from different directions


it's a father confirming darkness
it's darkness leading to that lightning of the classics


a door of weeping slams shut
echoes chasing its cry


it's a pen blossoming in lost hope
it's a blossom resisting the inevitable route


it's love's gleam waking to
light up landscape over zero


Translated by David Hinton and Yanbing Chen