Beginning a translation of Li Shangyin's series, "Poems for Someone"

POEMS FOR SOMEONE


I.

Your coming was an empty promise.
     Your going was without a trace.
At the fifth bell,
     moonlight slanted across the tower
as I wakened from despairing dreams,
     my cries not calling you back.
These pale words, this hasty letter,
     written before the ink could thicken.
One candle lights half the quilt
     with the kingfisher in a golden cage.
A faint scent of musk
     lingers on the embroidered lotus curtain.
Young Master Liu
     raged at the distance to the faerie hill.
But you are ten thousand mountains,
     ten thousand ranges farther.