Selected Poems from Ai Qing's Selected Poems

1. "I Love This Land"

If I were a bird,

I should also sing with a hoarse throat:

This storm-battered land,

The river that forever rages with our grief,

The enraged wind that blows endlessly,

And the incomparably gentler dawn from the forests of dawn ......

-and then I died,

and even my feathers rotted inside the land.

Why do I often have tears in my eyes?

Because I love the land so much ......

2. Trees

Tree by tree

One tree, one tree

Lone and apart from each other

The wind and the air

tell of their distance

But under the cover of the soil

Their roots grow

In unseen depths

They entwine their roots together

3. "Fossilized Fish"

How lively are the movements,

How energetic are the movements,

Jumping in the waves,

Floating in the sea;

Unlucky to meet with a volcanic eruption

Or maybe an earthquake,

you lost your freedom,

being sorted into the dust;

after how many billions of years,

geological explorers,

found you in the rock layer,

still lifelike.

But you are silent,

not even sighing,

scales and fins intact,

but unable to move;

you are absolutely still,

unresponsive to the outside world,

seeing neither sky nor water,

hearing not the sound of waves.

Leaving motion,

there is no life.

To live is to struggle,

to move forward in struggle,

even in death,

energy is to be utilized cleanly.

4, "Tiger Spot Shell"

Beautiful tiger spot

What polished you to such a shine

What polished you to such a shine

Fineer than the finest china

Harder than the cleanest of white gems

Oval and smooth as a goose's egg

No pinpoint bruise could be found

In the How many years at the bottom of the sea of despair

Rolling in ten thousand waves

All covered in jade armor_

Protecting the most vulnerable life

I never thought I'd see such beautiful sunshine

5. "To the Female Sculptor, Teddy Chang"

From your fingers flowed the hairs

Like undulating waves

From your fingers came eyes

with sad eyes

lips pursed tight

From your fingers came a me

with my breath

with my body heat

and I was silent

perhaps it was unfortunate

that I prolonged my life because of you