IS THERE A SPRING NOT BORN OUT OF A DESPERATE FIGHT? by Pan Xichen

IS THERE A SPRING NOT BORN OUT OF A DESPERATE FIGHT?

by Pan Xichen

After brewing for several seasons,

the snow finally fell,

covering up Mother

and all of

the magnificent north.  

Now, even though in an entirely seperate

kingdom, sunny and enchanting,

with a temperature difference of 50 degrees,

I too can feel

the vicious

chilly cold.

Only those lazybones

will say “winter has arrived,

and spring can’t be far behind!”

Can anyone imagine that winter left on its own?

Who can tell me

that there was ever a spring

that didn’t go through a live-or-die struggle,

that there was ever a spring

that was not born out of a desperate fight! 

About the poet:

Pan Xichen was born in Heilongjiang in 1963 and graduated from the Chinese Department of Harbin Normal University in 1986. He began writing poetry in the 1980s. His poems such as Drinking Wine on the Double Ninth Festival and In June We Go to See the Sea have been selected into senior high school and college Chinese textbooks. His works have been translated into English, French, Russian and other languages. He has published 12 poetry collections and essay collections successively. He has won numerous poetry awards including the Galloping Horse Award of Green Breeze, the Rougang Poetry Award, the Shanghai Literature Award, the Annual Gold Award for Most Popular Poems among Readers by The Poetic Tide, the Achievement Award of Li Bai Poetry Award of New Century Poetry Canon, 2016 Top Ten Excellent Poems, and 2016 China Top Ten Poets. He is currently chairman of Tianwen Culture Communication Institution and editor-in-chief of Reading Poetry.