The Pearl Necklace
Yu Guangzhong

Rolled away in the recesses of memory,
The precious years that we had shared,
Never expected to be recovered,
Were displayed on a blue porcelain plate
by the salesgirl of the jewelry shop,
Who came up to us and, smiling, asked:
“Would this one of eighteen inches do?”
So thirty years were strung along:
Dear years, where a year spanned hardly an inch,
Where each pearl, silver and shimmering,
Warm and full, was calling back
A treasured day we spent together:
Each pearl a fine day dewdrop,
Or on a wet day a raindrop,
Or a bead in a rosary told
And retold on days of mutual longing.
So the thread goes all the way
Through the sun and the moon, around your neck,
And in eighteen inches through our joint life.