Up where the seasons pass, the sky is filled with autumn. In this untroubled quietude I could almost count these autumn-couched stars.
But why I cannot now enumerate those one or two stars in my breast is because the dawn is breaking soon, and I have tomorrow night in store, and because my youth is not yet done.
Memory for one star, love for another star, sorrow for another star, longing for another star, poetry for another star, and oh! mother for another star.
Mother! I try to call each star by some such evocative word, names of school children with whom I shared desks, names of alien girls like Pai, Kyong, Ok, names of maidens who have already become mothers, names of neighbors who lived in poverty, names of birds and beasts like pigeon, puppy, rabbit, donkey, deer,and names of poets like Francis, Jammes and Reiner Maria Rilke.
They are as far away and intangible as the stars.
Mother! You too are in the distant land of the Manchus.
Because I have a secret yearning, seated on this star-showered bank, I have written my name thereon and covered it with earth. In truth, it is because the insects chirp all night to grieve over my bashful name.
But spring shall come to my stars after winter's delay, greening the turf over the graves, so this bank that buries my name shall proudly wear the grass again.