Try Again

A Work in Progress
25

Try again.  Fail again.  Fail better.

Heeding these words

Donal got up on his feet

Found his voice 

To those adrift in troubled times

Now in these times of strife

famines follow disasters

lands unploughed and wasted

our inheritance goes empty

brothers   sisters   are drifting

going east going west

while this war continues 

they cannot meet   or

direct their steps home

where doors bang in the wind

gardens lie ruined

they are my flesh and blood

yet they drift down strange roads

dragging their lonely shadows

through far countries

unable to lean on a friend

like a solitary bird

blown thousands of miles

like uprooted grass

scattered in the wind

I am alone

cut off from home

now we all look up at the moon

in five different places

the same thought clouds our eyes

and we weep

Po-Chu-Yi

T'ang Dynasty

translated by David Sen, Dick Russell

© 2025