Please

By Ye Zhou
Translated By Wang Ping

Translated from the Chinese

Please bring a light

Into the grotto cave, please don’t forget
To bring a handful of barley.

Please plant a Bodhi tree
On the grotto painting, please don’t forget
To offer a bowl of clean water.

Please bring a Buddha’s statue
Into Dunhuang, please don’t forget
To bring a couple of lambs.

Buddhas don’t walk away.
But if they do leave us,
Sorrow will stay forever.

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)