Dedicated to All Human Beings Who Suffer

^{translated from the Chinese by Joshua Edwards and Lynn Xu}

1.

No,
Behind the truth are other truths

2.

Rain makes a painting on the earth 
In the classical manner
Meticulously depicting what’s hidden from view:
Mountain, forest, valley, gorge
Building, vehicle, person 
Beasts, cattle, creeping things, and flying fowl
Gradually expressing the outline 
From invisible to visible 
From solid state to a state of change 

Is this a form of justice? 
Rain, and representations of rain 
Shrouds, and the shroud’s ability to obscure and to change 

This is like one who suffers 
Crying
To describe the hunter, the torturer, the thief, the grifter, and the assassin 
The one who suffers uses tears and exacting brush strokes
To scrub away the silk threads of pain, endless sorrow, sharp anguish, heartache, bloodletting grief, pain of breaking bone, pain of a thousand cuts, pain of losing one’s soul . . .

How many tears 
Are needed to provoke 
Another’s tears of sympathy?

Pain forms the boundary between life and death 
Rain is another name for heaven and earth 

All in the end is water

獻給苦難中的眾生

—1—
 

不，

在真相的背後還有真相


—2—

 

雨在大地上作畫
用工筆
細細描繪那些遮蔽物：
山、林、溝、壑
>建築、車輛、人
走獸，飛禽，爬蟲
使其漸漸顯出輪廓
從隱形，到顯像
從固態，到變、化

這是某種形式的正義嗎？
雨，和雨的描繪
遮蔽，和遮蔽的隱形與變化

這就如同 痛者
以眼淚<
描摹獵者、虐者、竊者、快者和忍者
痛者以眼淚、工筆
刷洗絲絲之痛，磅礡之痛，細密之痛，錐心之痛，泣血之痛，裂骨之痛，凌遲之痛，失魂之痛……

要多少眼淚
才能令他者
掬一掊同情之淚？

痛是生者與死的邊界
雨是天壤之別稱

而這一切皆歸於水

Copyright © 2024 by Yang Licai, Joshua Edwards, and Lynn Xu. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 26, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“I wrote these poems after seeing [some] news about people hurting and killing other people. I want it to end, but what can I do?”
—Yang Licai