translated by Jin Zhong and Stephen Haven

When the churches’ pinnacles, the city’s chimneys

            sink along the horizon

The English sky’s darker than a lover’s whisper

Two blind accordion players walk by with drooping heads

No farmer, no Evening Prayer, no gravestone,

No shaman – two lines of saplings

Because they are newly planted, pierce my heart

My wings make my name known, but it is England

That sends me to the place I’ve lost

Memory, but no more furrows

Humiliation, that is my address

The whole of England, and no woman strange to kiss

The whole England cannot hold my pride

In the soil packed beneath my fingernails

I recognize my motherland – my mother

Slipped into a small bag, mailed afar