When he was a youth of fifteen or twenty,
He chased a wild horse, he caught him and rode him,
He shot the white-browed mountain tiger,
He defied the yellow-bristled Horseman of Ye.
Fighting single- handed for a thousand miles,
With his naked dagger he could hold a multitude.
...Granted that the troops of China were as swift as heaven's thunder
And that Tartar soldiers perished in pitfalls fanged with iron,
General Wei Qing's victory was only a thing of chance.
And General Li Guang's thwarted effort was his fate, not his fault.
Since this man's retirement he is looking old and worn:
Experience of the world has hastened his white hairs.
Though once his quick dart never missed the right eye of a bird,
Now knotted veins and tendons make his left arm like an osier.
He is sometimes at the road-side selling melons from his garden,
He is sometimes planting willows round his hermitage.
His lonely lane is shut away by a dense grove,
His vacant window looks upon the far cold mountains
But, if he prayed, the waters would come gushing for his men
And never would he wanton his cause away with wine.
...War-clouds are spreading, under the Helan Range;
Back and forth, day and night, go feathered messages;
In the three River Provinces, the governors call young men --
And five imperial edicts have summoned the old general.
So he dusts his iron coat and shines it like snow-
Waves his dagger from its jade hilt in a dance of starry steel.
He is ready with his strong northern bow to smite the Tartar chieftain --
That never a foreign war-dress may affront the Emperor.
...There once was an aged Prefect, forgotten and far away,
Who still could manage triumph with a single stroke.

Milky, twinkling stars swiveling
in a diamond night sky are beautiful,
and the brightest one will lead you home,
but for now, I want to bring you
out into the light where at the fissure
of pale gold and orange in the blue
sky's dawn, you may suddenly draw
inspiration once again.
I would bring you to the peak of a mountain
to inhale a reservoir of fresh, crisp air
in an altitude of where you feel
you can belong, gazing out towards
the green valley and down the winding path,
leading back down to a narrow world,
but for now, (and eternity)
you can be above them all.  
I see your footsteps left behind on the
snowy cap, crunching beneath your feet
a reminder to both of us how you exist,
a humble memoir in the realness of a hurting,
beautiful being.
And in my dream when you came back
to life, we were spread out wildly on
blossoming, white clouds blown about in
warm winds, and the golden sunlight
brought out the clear, blue- gray in your eyes
and traced the freckles dabbling your cheeks
and you were just laughing,
because you were so free.
But in dark clashes of thunder, when
rain was not somebody's nourishing love
but instead painful, dark tears, there were
people's crude remarks and stark dispiritedness,
I held you tight in my arms, like a tree
sheltering a lone girl from prowling wolves
gathered your tears and turned them
into crystals, knowing one day
you'll teach yourself to throw them at
the narrow world full of paper people
and their paper ideas.
So for now, rest in the cradle
of my warm, loving palms,
and grow into the strong and beautiful
person you most want to become.