Translated by a j carruthers and Cui Yuwei
noon after snow
Kirin Bay Park
there where there’s a far corner
in this patch of wood
a shovel I see
stuck up a tree
two print-foot-trails
snake along
here from the path where I stand
sunbeam
it streams down through those branches there
suddenly, the shovel quivers
it’s as if it’s having a soul
gleams
dazzled light
snow forsaken by its whiteness
the two crows and with them a flock of sparrows
the lot of them frightened
flee with clatt’ring wing
Mai Fei was born in Liaoning and currently lives in Qinghai. He is the author of seven poetry collections, including Baby.
a j carruthers is an Australian-born experimental poet and literary critic. carruthers is a researcher at the Australian Studies Centre, SUIBE, Shanghai, and is author of Stave Sightings: Notational Experiments in North American Long Poems (Palgrave 2017) and Axis Book 1 (Vagabond 2014).
Cui Yuwei (better known under the pen name Wei Huan) is an award-winning poet and translator based in China. Her first bilingual poetry collection, Fish Bones, was published in 2017 by ASM/Flying Islands in Macao. She currently works as an international coordinator in Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai.