Foul Mood
Lin Hui-yin

In sickness, I am all wound up in worries and aggravations,
like the cold northwest wind, it blows over from the desert wilderness
slowly blowing on piles of garbage in alleys and street corners at dusk.
I try to console myself with bits of moldy, rotted odds and ends
but after all is used up, I'm startled at the wreckage that is left,
and bit by bit raising yet more terrifying dust for somebody else.

Memories are scattered like old newspapers, blown, lost, everywhere.
Old records, broken and separated, can only hint at past disturbance.
Excessive rationality is like a hungry wild dog
that chases after empty cans and meaty bones, a solitary chase
to chew on mankind's sorrow; but before one can say what life is all about,
already, before the eyes too many dregs!

I hope: the wind would stop, the mood tonight would be like a light fall of snow,
hushed whiteness gently fall to the ground.
Each flake brings to all a speck of enduring kindness
to cover, layer by layer, all that's foul, broken, and in pain.
In the lovely morning light of tomorrow, anxiety takes a little rest—
if despair comes, let it be the pitiless, cold currents after the snow!