By Ha Jin
So let misunderstanding spread.
It only shows how different
you are from others.
Many things cannot bear
explaining; you’d better
let silence and labor speak
in your defense.
You don’t need many friends
or to be enamored with beautiful women
or share the wine of happy gatherings,
because you have solitude enough,
content to leave this world without a sound.
Distant thunder can give you pure joy.
Birds in the sky can teach you
another kind of wisdom.
As your soul is growing new wings
such words will disappear from your dictionary:
boundary, complaint, cowardice, collapse…
Ha Jin, "Misunderstanding" from A Distant Center. Copyright © 2018 by Ha Jin. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
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