Poems of Mu Lan [China]

Poetess Mu Lan [China]

Poetess Mu Lan is a renowned contemporary Chinese poet and writer. Her ancestral home is in Lanling County, Shandong Province. She currently resides in Chongqing, where she works in the media industry. She has been writing poetry, fiction, and essays since the 1980s. She has won numerous literary awards, and some of her poems have been translated into multiple languages. Her published poetry collections include A 500-Million-Year Bond, Walking Through the Marshes of Innocence, and Grasses of the North, etc.
 

 
Cicada
 
Emerging from life’s dark depths, it takes both self-cultivation and karmic grace.
Your long, silent discipline has lifted you high into the tree.
You survived uncountable perils to be reborn at last,
leaving life’s last mystery in the quiet chamber.
 
“Trill—trill—trill—”
Once aloft the tree, you burst into passionate song.
Each note an aria, each a final goodbye,
Echoing through the empty valley, stirring all far and nigh.
 
Your singing is the fervent climax of the bitter summer.
Yet some call you overreaching: “Half a bottle clatters loudest.”
You reply: Even if but a moment, I will sing.
The meaning of life lies not in how long it lasts.
 
When autumn comes, you quietly return underground.
Your body becomes a feast for ants; your heart, lost in the sun.
Though you’ve left the world, your eyes still remain unclosed.
You are waiting to sing again next year.
 
 
Ode to the Lotus
 
Riding on ethereal clouds, you come from a dream of former lives.
Quietly you take root in your water-town home in the west.
Born into the mortal world, yet you stand graceful and tall,
never tempted by earthly allure, but holding a smile for life alone.
From mud you rise, unsoiled; your beauty lives only for the light.
 
You’ve passed the Dead Sea and the Jurassic age, beheld Dragon-Phoenix Ancient Town and the Red Sea,
Zhuotong Wells, Gaofeng Mountain, Wolong Mountain—
blessed lands of wonder and peace.
Still you sigh deeply for Master Chen Zi’ang, the great poet of Early Tang:
his On Youzhou Tower, his thirty-eight Meditations,
his timeless longing and grief. It is a ray of human light across the sky of history,
a wisp of nostalgia between hills and rills, a patriot’s love supports this land.
 
The waters of Guanyin Lake, vaster than West Lake in Hangzhou,
are they the pure tears of your devotion, or boundless ocean turned from ancient farmlands?
You answer: They are the divine spring bestowed by the Fujiang River
to thank the people and bless the world.
 
On this sacred ancient land, time flows as flowers bloom and fade.
Yet your compassion stays unchanged, guarding the spring with grace,
soothing countless woes, wiping all earthly dust away.
Even age-old Song porcelain holds your timeless lotus grace.
Zhou Dunyi, the great Neo-Confucian sage of Northern Song Dynasty,
 
poured forth his soul to pen his timeless Ode to the Lotus.
Let us hymn your grace in verse always.
 
Your pure heart strives to bloom the Buddha’s flower,
to bring enlightenment to all, far and near.
You are the very grace of Guanyin’s power;
All who hold karmic ties may enter your sacred bower.
 
Note: Suining City, Sichuan Province, known as the Hometown of Guanyin, is a celebrated tourist destination in Sichuan, China.
 
 
My Moon
 
They say the sun is the cosmos' heart, you the world's eye—
A timeless tale, Jade Rabbit accompanies you through wax and wane.
The first story I ever heard was of you,
The first starry vault I gazed on framed by you.
We are bound through life and death: my soul by your glow long illumined.
How many truths have sprung from our eons-old union?
 
To you I send my dreams—sorrows, pains, and helplessness intertwined,
Yet still I watch and wait today, for the fair moon’s gentle shine.
In joy and sorrow I think of you, in love and hate I blame and chide.
My cycle of woe has often turned life upside down,
But your gaze remains—steady, holding fast to faith for me.
You bless all under heaven equally, yet I always fall short of your grace.
Perhaps my conscience has not yet linked to your soul’s thread.
Strife, madness, curses taint human hearts; conspiracies gnaw at civilization.
Arrogance and shallowness have stolen countless springs from me.
The beauty you bestowed still lingers, waiting for my return.
 
Heaven and earth are eternal, yet I remain a child unripe.
Your pure feminine gentleness strives for wholeness—born to seek perfection.
We are destined to be an eternal ‘new tomorrow’—always beginning anew.
No matter how dark the night, your Zen-like, mellow warmth abides,
Guiding me to find a kind mother, a home filled with joy.

(Translated by Prof. Zhang Qiong)