POEMS OF CHANG CHIEN

Translated into English by Chen Yulin

PICTURE

You are a picture

Containing 100 colours.

But only one dragon eye is missing,

Waiting puietly for me to draw.

I close my eyes to concentrate

With worry in my mind.

If I agree,

All will be happy.

But you must fly away,

Darting upward thousands of meters,never to return.

I suffer agony like the rolling rocks,

Hesitating long with no intention of lifting the brush.

At the last minute Iasked you with lips pressed:

Are you willing or not,after all?

Chang Chien, born in 1940, is a native of Zhijiang Province. He has worked as professor of the Phd. Program in comparative literature of the Institute of Foreign Literature of Taiwan University, He is the editor-in-chief of lue Star Poets lub? and editor of odern Literature? His publications are: 37 collections of poems like Spring Blessing.the Earth, The Eternal Sunlight, etc;