Classic Poem

A flower planted on the sands
doesn't bloom, even on a bright spring day.
Bamboo rustles
because the wind blows.
Wailing reeds flail their hands about,
this too because the wind rages on.
Scree rolls and causes rockslides
unable to sustain its own weight in the wind.

Bamboo trees, reeds, pebbles,
howl in the blowing of the wind.

We want to live quietly.
Knowing too well what comes around, that there will be nothing
but the stigma of layoffs, hunger, beatings, and a life behind bars,
who will there be to stand and speak out?
Though you say to us
we cause the labor problems,
like the stones, like the grass, we want to live quietly.
Only we must go on spreading the desiccated roots
from the sands, on toward the fertile soils.
On spring days, we too want to be fragrant like the humble flowers.
The wind drives us on ruthlessly
so we are compelled to cry out,
we are forced to start rockslides,
because we cannot endure it any longer.