^{Translated from the Mandarin by Arthur Sze}

Dr. Xia Kejun said today:
there is no poetry in hell, and heaven does not require it either.
Great literature can only come from purgatory.

Sure, I agree. Destroyed in hell,
like in a gulag or the Jiabiangou labor camp—
there’s a crowd of hungry ghosts and idiots there.
But are we in Dante’s purgatory now?
No, I am reminded of Jonah’s legend—
The prophet Jonah was thrown into the ocean,
and a large fish swallowed him.
We, too, are in the belly of a fish;
it is dirty, but it seems warmer than the ocean outside.
This fish belly has hurricanes, floods (sometimes,
it floods up to your chest, like when you are stuck in a subway car!).
There are eerie clouds as dense as fish scales.
Yet there is care in this fish belly, and they summon us
to get vaccinated in the middle of the night.
In the fish belly, we just can’t find
a table on which to write our great literature.
Does literature matter? We just want to live.
Jonah’s eyes were wide open, and he prayed
in the fish belly for three days and three nights.
And we don’t know
who the master of this big fish is.
We don’t know if we can make it to the very end
or if we will be spit out by this giant fish.

^{—after Gwendolyn Brooks}

My wild grief didn’t know where to end.
Everywhere I looked: a field alive and unburied. 
Whole swaths of green swallowed the light. 
All around me, the field was growing. I grew out 
My hair in every direction. Let the sun freckle my face. 
Even in the greenest depths, I crouched 
Towards the light. That summer, everything grew 
So alive and so alone. A world hushed in green. 
Wildest grief grew inside out.

I crawled to the field’s edge, bruises blooming 
In every crevice of my palms. 
I didn’t know I’d reached a shoreline till I felt it 
There: A salt wind lifted 
The hair from my neck. 
At the edge of every green lies an ocean. 
When I saw that blue, I knew then: 
This world will end.

Grief is not the only geography I know. 
Every wound closes. Repair comes with sweetness, 
Come spring. Every empire will fall: 
I must believe this. I felt it 
Somewhere in the field: my ancestors 
Murmuring Go home, go home—soon, soon. 
No country wants me back anymore and I’m okay.

If grief is love with nowhere to go, then 
Oh, I’ve loved so immensely. 
That summer, everything I touched 
Was green. All bruises will fade 
From green and blue to skin. 
Let me grow through this green 
And not drown in it. 
Let me be lawless and beloved, 
Ungovernable and unafraid. 
Let me be brave enough to live here. 
Let me be precise in my actions. 
Let me feel hurt. 
I know I can heal. 
Let me try again—again and again.

Well, son, I’ll tell you: 
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare;
But all the time
I’se been a’climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners, 
And sometimes goin’ in the dark, 
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back;
Don’t you sit down on the steps, 
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard;
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.