The Woman Mending Clothes
Ai Qing

The woman mending clothes sits by the roadside.
When people pass by
Dust rises up,
Dust coats her kerchief,
Dust grays her clothes.

Her baby begins crying,
The child’s tears are dried by the sun;
She does not notice it.
Silently she thinks of her home,
Its shelter destroyed by gunfire.
Silently she mends clothes for people,
And lets her child’s eyes,
Those poor reddened eyes,
Stare at the empty basket.

The woman mending clothes sits by the roadside.
The road stretches away endlessly.
She mends socks for some passer-by,
And the passer-by goes on.