Spring Day at the Lomond

The Lomond wakes in gentle shine,
Wi’ springtime licht across the line.
The breeze comes saft, the shadows thin—
A day that warms ye frae within.

The birks grow green by stane and shore,
Their leaves like whispers evermore.
The loch lies calm in silver sway,
A mirror for the length o’ day.

The hills shed winter’s lingerin’ hue,
As brighter skies come glintin’ through.
A quiet joy begins tae rise—
Spring breathes its peace ower land and skies.

鷓鴣天 · 同焚

月到簾西燈半昏,
一枝香細落衣痕。
本將風影試人意,
不料今宵竟有人。

花未語,水無言,
卿來一步已忘船。
琴心三疊猶在指,
誤把餘音喚作緣。

世說春深花易冷,
我知花熱勝於焚。
若教此夜同歸火,
何必人間萬劫春。

門本開,心亦真,
當時不鎖為誰存?
而今既許身如燼,
與卿相照作微塵。

題尾

後人或問:
此詞為誰而作?

我但笑曰——
夜深燈盡,
灰中尚暖。

若問其人,
風已知之。

月過竹影,
水復無痕。

惟餘一念:

當時火盛,
兩心同焚。

Moonlight reaches the west of the curtain,
the lamp already half dim.
A thin thread of incense
falls softly upon my sleeve.

I had opened the door only
to test the wind’s shadow—
yet tonight
someone truly came.

The flower says nothing,
the water keeps silence.
But with a single step
you forgot the boat behind you.

The qin’s three echoes
still rest on my fingers;
mistakenly
I call the lingering note fate.

They say deep spring
makes flowers grow cold.
I know instead
a flower can burn hotter than flame.

If tonight
we return together to fire,
why should we envy
ten thousand lifetimes of spring?

The door was always open,
the heart always true—
I left it unlocked
for someone.

Now that I allow
my body to become ash,
let it shine with yours

as drifting dust
in the same light.

Marginal Note

Later readers may ask:
For whom was this lyric written?

I only smile and say—
When the night was deep
and the lamp burned out,
the ashes were still warm.

If you ask who it was,
the wind already knows.

The moon has passed the bamboo shadows,
the water leaves no trace.

Only this thought remains:

When the flame was highest,
two hearts burned together.

春醒

晨光輕輕揭開窗紗,
薄雾仲帶住夜嘅餘溫,
泥土呼一口氣——暖咗,
萬物喺靜裏開始郁動。

細芽喺枝頭試聲,
似細語,未敢太大聲,
風輕撫過河面,水紋微顫,
好似記得點樣流動。

花未全開,但已經心軟,
顏色喺內裡慢慢滲出,
似一種無人教嘅衝動,
由深處,一路向光伸展。

鳥聲一粒粒落喺空氣度,
敲醒沉睡嘅時間,
連影子都變得柔軟,
貼住地面,唔再抗拒光。

而我喺呢一刻明白——
春唔係突然嚟到,
係一切忍咗好耐之後,
終於肯再次呼吸。

Morning light parts the veil of the window,
Mist still holding the breath of night.
The earth exhales—warmer now,
And everything stirs within the quiet.

Small buds test their voices on branches,
Soft murmurs, not yet daring loud,
The wind brushes the river’s skin—
Ripples remembering how to move.

Flowers not open, yet already yielding,
Color rising slowly from within,
Like a longing no one ever taught,
Reaching upward, drawn to light.

Birdsong scatters into the air,
Tapping gently on sleeping time,
Even shadows grow more tender,
Lying close, no longer resisting the sun.

And in this moment, I understand—
Spring does not arrive all at once,
It is everything, after holding too long,
Finally choosing to breathe again.

Lady Godiva

They say Lady Godiva rode naked through the town,
but I do not hear scandal in the story.
I hear silence.

A woman loosening gold from her hair,
letting it fall like a second cloak,
not to tempt—
but to refuse.

Streets hold their breath.
Wooden shutters close like careful eyes.
Even the horses walk softer,
as if hooves know
when courage passes.

She rides without armor,
yet the air around her
is steadier than steel.

Not shame—
never shame.

Only the strange authority
of a woman who understands
that sometimes the body itself
is a language
power cannot command.

Her hair moves with the wind,
long as a river remembering mountains.
Her back is straight.
Her gaze unbroken.

And in that quiet procession
through narrow streets and watching hearts,

the world learns
a dangerous truth:

that dignity,
when worn without fear,
can make even a naked woman
untouchable.

自畫像

我唔係為喧嘩而生。
我一生行路,
好似絲線穿過細細隻玉環——
慢,穩,
從來唔撕裂。

我一半記得
海港夜雨,燈影搖搖,
洋紫荊花瓣
喺濕暖空氣裡慢慢落。

另一半
聽見北邊啲風
掠過石山同草坡,
聲音低低。

我好早就學識:
人靜落嚟,
反而更容易
掌住一間房嘅呼吸。

紀律教我雙手要準——
工程師嘅線條,
呼吸要穩。
但音樂一直
藏喺骨入面,
慢慢跳。

我唔會
將心擺喺市集咁任人睇。
佢開,
好似夜蘭——
一瓣,
再一瓣,
只為識得等嘅眼。

慾望嚟嘅時候
唔會大聲。
佢只係靜靜
喺血裡面聚起,
直到連沉默
都開始發熱。

所以我就咁企喺度——
唔止係風暴,
亦唔止係避風嘅地方,
而係兩者之間
嗰一點火,
風再大
都未熄。

I was not made for noise.
My life moves like silk through a narrow ring—
quiet, deliberate,
never tearing.

Half of me remembers rain over harbour lights,
Bauhinia petals drifting through humid air.
The other half hears northern wind
running low across the hills of stone.

I learned early
that stillness can rule a room
more surely than laughter.

Discipline taught my hands their patience—
engineer’s lines, measured breath,
yet music lives beneath the bone,
a slow pulse in the dark.

I do not offer my heart like an open market.
It opens instead
like an orchid at night—
one petal,
then another,
for the rare gaze that knows how to wait.

Desire, when it comes,
does not shout.
It gathers quietly in the blood
until even silence begins to burn.

So I stand as I am:
neither storm nor shelter alone—
but the space between them
where a single flame survives the wind.

First Woman

They say I was the first mistake—
a hand reaching where light had barely cooled.
But the garden was already listening
for the sound of a question.

Morning leaned through the fig leaves
like a secret learning breath.
The earth smelled of rain and warm skin,
and the river curved
as if it knew a body would one day follow it.

I was not lonely.
Loneliness had not yet been invented.
But silence had weight,
and the fruit shone
like a thought refusing sleep.

He slept beside me—
Adam, gentle as uncarved wood—
dreaming the calm dream
of someone who had never chosen.

Yet something in my ribs remembered fire,
a quiet ember
where the maker’s breath had rested.
Curiosity is only the soul
testing its own wings.

So I touched the red skin of the world.

Not hunger—
no, it was recognition.

The first bite
was a door opening inward.
Light shattered into knowledge,
and suddenly the wind had names:
desire, exile, mercy, time.

They say I doomed us.

But listen—
even now the orchards bloom from that moment.
Every poem begins in that mouthful.
Every lover who reaches across the dark
is answering my courage.

I was the first to step beyond obedience,
the first to feel the horizon pull.

If there is blame,
let it be this:

I loved the world
before it knew
how dangerous love could be.

Where Silence Learned Our Names

Strange—
how those who suffered in the same cold room
leave with a warmth no summer ever taught.

I have seen it:
two shadows crossing winter fields,
boots heavy with thawing mud,
breath rising like pale incense
into a sky that would not answer.

The wind speaks louder there.
It combs the ribs of broken fences,
makes hollow bottles sing in the ditches,
teaches the dark to whistle through bone.

And still—
two people walking that road together
begin to move in one quiet rhythm.

A hand offered not from joy
but from knowing.

A silence
that does not wound.

Contented hearts drift softly elsewhere—
bright rooms, easy laughter,
windows open to the smell of bread and orchards.
They are kind, perhaps.
But their voices float like petals
over water too calm to remember storms.

Those who have shivered beneath the same night
speak another music.

Low.
Unadorned.
Like embers breathing under ash.

Because when the world grows narrow as frost
and the dark presses close as a lover’s whisper,

two small flames
leaning toward each other

learn
how to burn
without fear.

Monday Morning Yoga

It’s Monday morn, I stretch me spine,
Me breath goes slow, the world feels fine.
I bend and twist, shake off the fog—
Spring’s in the air, and I’m back on the log.

I flop me mat beside the door,
Me hamstrings moan, me elbows sore.
But up I goes, no time to slack—
It’s Monday, love, I’m bendin’ back.

The buses roar, the pavements shake,
But still I breathe for calmness’ sake.
The city hums, I find me grin—
A bit o’ peace in all that din.

火門自入

你話門開,
但風識分寸。
今夜我來——
唔帶鎖,
亦唔帶退路。

月曾教我忍光,
水曾教我藏心;
但見你燈影一動,
我先知道
火原來可以有名。

你話香近會亂路。
我而家明。
因為一步踏入,
春就唔再係季節——
係身。

袖邊花氣未散,
我已知輸。
但輸俾你
唔係墮落,
係自選嘅火。

你問魚點解顫。
今晚我答——
水若太靜,
連靈魂
都想游近。

所以我唔再半步。
今夜
我跨過嗰條線。

燈未滅,
影已亂。
你話雲壓水面要忍——
但雷若生,
天都要開。

我唔問你留唔留。
花開本來
就唔問春。

只係將心
放喺你火旁邊,
慢慢燒。

若你要我走,
我會走。
但灰未冷之前
你會記得——

曾經有一夜,
有人自己行入火門,
唔為救贖,
只為

同你
一齊燃。

You said the door was open
yet the wind knew restraint.
Tonight I come—
with no lock
and no road back.

The moon taught me to withhold light,
the water taught me to hide the heart.
But when your lamp-shadow moved,
I understood
that fire can bear a name.

You warned that fragrance
too near
confuses the road.
Now I know why.
One step inside
and spring ceases to be a season—
it becomes a body.

The blossom-scent on your sleeve
tells me I am already lost.
Yet losing to you
is not a fall,
but a chosen flame.

You asked why the fish trembles.
Tonight I answer—
when water grows too still,
even the soul
wants to swim closer.

So I take no half step now.
Tonight
I cross the line.

The lamp still burns,
but the shadows scatter.
You said clouds and water must endure—
yet when thunder is born
even heaven must open.

I do not ask if you will keep me.
Flowers never ask
whether spring will stay.

I only place my heart
beside your fire
and let it burn slowly.

If you tell me to leave,
I will go.
But before the ashes cool
you will remember—

that once, for a single night,
someone walked willingly
into the gate of flame,

not for salvation,

but to burn
with you.