FORMER RESIDENCE by Li Tianjing

FORMER RESIDENCE

Li Tianjing

Light doors along the passage of time—

lift a foot, you can easily stagger in.

Let a boy’s little hand

push open every hidden door along the passage.

A wooden horse comes to life!

As if the old garden has gone back

in time, the reflections on the water

are as fresh as today’s flowers.

But images are mirages,

and a stranger in a strange place

cannot be heard knocking at doors.

About the poet:

Li Tianjing, a poet and poetry critic, is a member of the China Writers Association. He served as a senior editor of a magazine at East China Normal University and the chief editor of Shanghai Poet under the Shanghai Writers Association.

His poems have won many poetry awards from publications such as People's Literature, Chinese Writers, Wenyi Bao, Writing and Mangzhong. His poetry collection You Become the Prey of Your Own Poems recently won the 2015 Annual Poetry Award of the Shanghai Writers Association.

His poems have been included in anthologies such as Twenty-Five Years of Misty Poetry, Fifty Years of China's "Stars" Poetry Selection, Boundless Wind——10-Year Fine Works Selection of "Green Wind", Selected Chinese Poems of 2008 and Huacheng Annual Selection Series: Poetry Annual Selection of 2013.