Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. 

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.

The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)
 

This poem is in the public domain. 

I like the lady horses best,
how they make it all look easy,
like running 40 miles per hour
is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.
I like their lady horse swagger,
after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!
But mainly, let’s be honest, I like
that they’re ladies. As if this big
dangerous animal is also a part of me,
that somewhere inside the delicate
skin of my body, there pumps
an 8-pound female horse heart,
giant with power, heavy with blood.
Don’t you want to believe it?
Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see
the huge beating genius machine
that thinks, no, it knows,
it’s going to come in first.

From Bright Dead Things (Milkweed Editions, 2015). Copyright © 2015 by Ada Limón. Used with permission from Milkweed Editions, milkweed.org.

translated by Chenxin Jiang

           as a door-nail
           and gone            to the world
           air             broke drop
nothing is certain but          and taxes
           mask             knell          grip
           blow              metal         rattle
food for worms sticky end brown bread
          or alive valiant to the             la la la
wish I were             yeah right you wish

 


預習

未知生焉知
不能復生視      如歸     而無憾
出生入      一線間    生契濶
輕於鴻毛     而後已而復生
     不瞑目不足惜
寧    不屈      鳴不默
一雞一鳴撐飯蓋鴨升天
憂患不終無安樂    啦    啦啦
未    得呢你就想

© 2020 Yau Ching and Chenxin Jiang. Published in Poem-a-Day in partnership with Words Without Borders (wordswithoutborders.org) on September 26, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.