If not the sands stretched far and wide

By X. Z. Shao

If not the sands stretched far and wide,
Encroached every inch of my land,
I would take your hand and flee to a wood and brook.
Sitting on a rock, we would breathe the mountain air.
I would look into your eyes
With cares beyond the words of the wise.
Your beauty was so intense,
Making my heart long with pain.

Come, let the birds sing by,

The water sweetly glide.
Let us splash the pool
And run from glade to glade,
So that my pain might be lulled
And my passion evaporated with joys.

You are a princess of the Middle Kingdom

With a vague Persian or Grecian look
You surpass your ancient counterparts in grace.
Your eyes are the doors to a deep blue ocean;
Your lips are two petals in a rose garden.
The slight sway of your hip will stir a hermit’s heart.
Yet, you never intend to lure and trap;
Reason and Intelligence sit high on your brow;
Your smiles win but with never a crumb of a witch’s design.
Without your knowledge you wound but have never been wounded.

I would bravely take your hand and flee to a wood and brook

Where you dispelled my excess reverence in the bush.
Returning to primitive we would build a stone cave.
Through the long nurture by the sounds of the wild,
I wish you could read my eyes
And hear my heart’s sounding like a cataract.
Far, far from the madding crowd,
How I wish you were my nymph
And we lived in oblivion.

Yet, we can’t.

The sand dunes are drawing near;
The last caravan is lining up its camels on the dusty road.
You are the final stream of a spring dwindling out as it flows,
Catching eyes, firing desires and stirring up troubles.
In the land of abundances, I hear the jackals’ calls of thirst;
I thirst as everybody thirsts.
There is no land to escape,
So let me live in the mirage of your crystal realm.
Tell me what magic may work,
So that I may drink the final drops from your spring.

               Novemver, 2006