Lament

By Ken Fan 

An uncomfortable duality, 

Beauty and terror. 

Each has the other magnified, 

And glorified. 

Like a tender flower among wild weeds, 

Like tiny bamboos sticking out of rocky cracks. 

And, can't you forget 

that tenacious pine tree, 

clutching at a precipice above the bloody sunset?

Isn't there a Sage, 

who delivered words of wisdom years ago, 

"Beauty is recognized because ugliness exists"?

Isn't there a poet from a remote land, who lamented,

"All changed, 

changed utterly, 

a terrible beauty is born"?

Ah, wait a moment. 

No more such "beauties" please,

because the world can't endure any more ugliness and terror.

Just nothing, 

Yes, nothing, 

and let peace awake...