A Solitary Wild Goose, Cui Tu (300 Tang Shi #166)

So many lines returned across the border
But this thin silhouette goes where alone?
Through evening rain it calls to those it’s lost—
To some cold pond it longs to descend at last.
It crosses the cloudy islet low in the dark,
Lonely together with the moonlit pass.
Surely it won’t encounter a hunter’s arrow—
Flying solo myself, I can but wonder.

孤雁
几行归塞尽，
片影独何之？
暮雨相呼失，
寒塘欲下迟。
渚云低暗渡，
关月冷相随。
未必逢矰缴，
孤飞自可疑。



This was written as the second of a 2-poem set. Hmm. There’s a few poetic inversions of word order in the original, which I’ve tried the flavor of to replicate. Lost in translation: the arrow is one with a silk cord tied on, so the hunter can retrieve a fallen bird.

---L.