Breaking Willow Twigs

----Yu Xuanji (b 843 - executed 863)

(trans. Leonard Ng)

Morning after morning I say goodbye,

crying into my gilded hairpin;

the willow twigs have been plucked bare

in the spring breeze and mist.

How I wish West mountain

didn’t have any trees.

Then I’d be spared these tears,

endlessly falling.