The River of Shadows
Chen Li

Every day, from our teacups
flows a river of shadows.
The places spotted with lipstick marks
are the constantly vanishing
riverbanks.
A houseful of tea fragrance allures us into sleep.
What we drink may be time,
may be ourselves,
may be our parents, who have fallen into the cups.

We catch from the silty bottoms of the cups
last year’s scenery:
a mountainful of jasmine,
flowers blooming and falling.
We watch the cold river boiling once again,
warmly dissolving the descending darkness.

Then we sit drinking tea from the cups that
brighten up like lanterns. We sit
on the bank as high as a dream,
waiting for the tea to turn into the river,
for the trees to blossom and bear fruit,
till we, like our parents, are incarnated
in a fruit,
a camellia,
vanishing into the river of shadows.