By Li Qingzhao
Translated by Mark Francis
Often I recall that sunset on the pavilion by the brook
when we got so drunk that we lost the way back.
The mood exhausted, our late-returning boat
strayed deep among lotuses.
Struggling to get across, struggling to get across,
we startled a bank full of gull and egret.
Last night the rain came scattered, wind sudden.
Through deep sleep drunkenness had no end.
I asked the maid as she rolled up the curtain,
but she said, “The crab-apples are as they’ve been.”
“Are you certain? Are you certain--?
The greens should be fat, the reds thin.”
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