Meditation on the Road [6/6]

Six Wartime Sonnets (VI)

 

          26

Feng Zhi, 1941

tr. Huiwen Zhang

Every day we walk a well-known path

Going back to the place we live,

But in these woods lie hidden yet

Many narrow paths, deep and strange.

Walking an unknown path our heart shies

Fearing the further gone, the further lost,

When unawares from a clearing in the woods

Catching sudden sight of the place we live

Like a new island against the sky’s edge

How many things around us yearn

To be new found:

Think not all is well-known,

At death stroking hair and skin

A question’s born:  Whose body is this?

Interpretation follows!