Time Is Blossoming

By Mo Fei
Translated By Wang Ping

Translated from the Chinese

As if sweet olives blossomed again after the first Bailu frost, shadows
Talk, tiger tail grass talks, only gourds stay silent when pulled from trees

Talking gourds pull and mock us. Time blossoms with its fruit
Before the flowers. This surprising joy happens only once

Wind blows on the roof. Clean words and sentences
Wipe out the last leaf. Wild lettuce grows in the fields

The corn is shaking and nobody knows why. No one knows when
Autumn starts. Sorghum and buckwheat grow on each side of the mountain

But birds know how good this year’s harvest is. They come
To count new things in the dripping rain. After the first Bailu frost

The work on earth will end. The Stonehenge makers
Don’t use stones, but stones exist in all the ruins

Notes:

This poem is part of the portfolio “Wind Crossing Grasses: Poems from Poems from China’s Dragon Rivers.” The folio is an excerpt from the forthcoming anthology of the same name, translated and edited by Wang Ping, with a co-introduction from Gary Snyder (Kinship Poetry Press, 2026). You can read the rest of the folio in the July/August 2025 issue. 

Source: Poetry (July/August 2025)