New Year
--Bei Dao (trans by D Hinton/Yanbing Chen) 

a child carrying flowers walks toward the new year
a conductor tattooing darkness
listens to the shortest pause 

hurry a lion into the cage of music
hurry stone to masquerade as a recluse
moving in parallel nights 

who's the visitor? when the days all
tip from nests and fly down roads
the book of failure grows boundless and deep 

each and every moment's a shortcut
I follow it through the meaning of the East
returning home, closing death's door