A Distant Center. Ha Jin

      patience and endurance.

      Get up, move quietly, and leave

      all the clamor behind.

      MISFORTUNE

      Misfortune is again descending.

      In what fashion will it appear this time?

      You have seen calamities and deaths

      and have been shaken by shattered families,

      their members scattered everywhere.

      So many times you almost collapsed,

      moaning, “No more — I’m done for!”

      But you picked yourself up

      and set out again, although

      you had to make abrupt turns,

      had to cross new hills and valleys

      learning another kind of staggering.

      Now, misfortune is coming,

      but you don’t tremble anymore,

      already familiar with its company:

      beneath a ghastly mask are the faces

      of various deities, including Opportunity.

      THE CHOICE OF EXILE

      Although you are almost middle-aged

      you still want to uproot yourself

      and go far away so you can start over.

      You haven’t set out yet, uncertain

      where to put down roots.

      You often wish you could be like that artist

      who bought a little island so that

      he could live freely on his own land.

      He raised vegetables and chickens, did carpentry,

      planted bamboo and fruit trees

      all over the slope beyond his cottage.

      Every season was like spring on his island,

      where he could hear only the tides and birdsong.

      It was beautiful and quiet enough to smother him.

      Don’t forget he chose to kill himself

      and even strangled his wife,

      because he couldn’t see how to continue,

      so crushed was he by madness and fear.

      From the very beginning he should have known

      that if he chose exile he would have no land of his own

      — the desire to depart

      would rise in him again and again —

      he could find no home other than the road.

      Don’t dream of taking root somewhere else.

      Once you start out, you must live like a boat,

      accepting a wandering fate

      drifting from port to port, to port . . .

      A 58-YEAR-OLD PAINTER LEAVING FOR AMERICA

      Tomorrow you will leave Shanghai,

      the city you used to love,

      to look for another life far away.

      “Probably another death,”

      you often joke with a smile these days.

      You have attempted death several times.

      Expel it from your mind.

      No matter how hard life is there,

      you must continue to live.

      As long as you are alive

      there will be miracles.

      Indeed, you have no English

      or youth for starting over,

      only your paintbrush and fortitude.

      In that strange land

      you must live, as always,

      with stubbornness and care.

      You must quit drinking and avoid

      staying up all night.

      Keep in mind the meaning of

      your existence: wherever you land,

      your footprints will become milestones.

      IN SASKATCHEWAN

      Facing a thousand acres for sale,

      your cheeks turn pink, your eyes flashing.

      True, if you pay a hundred thousand dollars,

      this farm will be yours,

      together with the pasture and the farmhouse.