Archive note: translated from the Chinese original, recovered from the Wayback Machine.
Whether or not it is still you
by Yan
I once wanted to draw a worm,
to forge needle after needle into word after word,
forever conjuring hardships and encounters out of nothing,
forever moved to tears at each moment about to dissolve.
Later I could only live in earnest,
make my peace with the ordinary.
As if there were no more pain,
the lost things gone behind me,
as if, in the end, I had seen them off —
those fast-decaying dreams and loves.
Look:
heaven and earth hold great beauty and say nothing,
all things have their reason and speak it not.
And so my gaze is just like this,
watching the self that slips away,
letting the shadow under the setting sun scatter, at ease.