Three Sonnets by Haoyang Yin

Outside the winter

O where do flitting flakes so freely flow

Come down to rest, embraced by boundless earth?

Arouse the vernal sprouts that cannot grow,

Until you melt and sing of spring and rebirth.

Away, dissolve, like salt in water clear,

With paleness cold you mar my summer land.

Your fearsome host departs—a frigid seer

Lifts up her palm to catch you in her hand.

And as you fade you fail to lose your mood

Through which your dreamlike spirit brightly shines;

Transformed, you push again back through as wood

On trees whose green leaves drop down royal vines.

 Along the turning wheel of the season

I turn as well, with divinity and reason. 

Dream Outside

The night is still and glowing with the moon,

Who shines her beams of silver through the pane

To fall on you, my argent ardent one, so soon

To wed me, down some quiet country lane.

 I dreamt that night I walked to silent towers, 

Where echoes of past laughter did remain

And danced with tears during the midnight hours

Only to drift—like me—apart in misty rain. 

O where, I wonder, would my boat soon go—

To distant shores which frighten or delight?

I cannot tell if homewards I now row—

In dreams I journey all-ways through the night.

Dawn rises, and took with it my reveries:

A mere episode, doused in shadowed memories.

Outside of Sorrow

Don’t cry! See this firefly—it comes to life

In darkness: electric blooms conclude the day

Like stars, and never fail to shine in strife,

Light up, like them, and never hide away.

You think your path is long? Please just observe

The little insect, slim and alone: it flies

To meet another by the sea’s broad curve

For just a moment—it loves, and then it dies.

 No more for you are endless tears of sorrow.

Nature has no matching sentiment.

Seize this fleeting moment, not tomorrow’s,

And let your mind to purpose now be bent.

Purpose, dear— you think you have it not.

There is that is, and shall soon be forgot.