The Cricket’s Song
Luo Fu

From the courtyard
To the corner of my room the cricket sings
Chirrup, chirrup
Suddenly it jumps
From a crack in the stone steps
To the pillow where, white-haired, I lay my head
Pushed from the edge of yesterday
To this corner of the world today
The cricket is heard but not seen
I search everywhere for it
No trace in the blue sky
No sign in the earth
Even in my breast I can’t find that little ticker
The evening rain lets up
The moon outside my window
Delivers the sound of woodcutting
The stars roil
Chirrup, chirrup
The cricket’s song is like a purling rill
Childhood drifts downstream
Tonight I’m not in Chengdu
My snoring is not a longing for home
And the chirrup in my ears weaves an unending song
I can’t recall the year, the month, or the evening
In what city or village
Or in what small train station I heard it
Chirrup, chirrup
The one I hear tonight surprises
Chirrup, chirrup
Its song
Meanders like the Jialing River beside my pillow
There is no boat for hire so late at night
I can only swim with the current
The waves at the Three Gorges reach to the sky
Monkeys cry on both shores
Fish
Spicy fish on a blue porcelain platter
Chirrup, chirrup
Which cricket is it that really sings?
The Cantonese one seems the loneliest
The Sichuan one, the saddest
The Beijing one, the noisiest
The Hunan one, the spiciest
But
When I wake
It’s the cricket in Sanli Lane that
Sings the softest and most dearly of them all
Chirrup, chirrup