Could This Someday Be the Saddest Poem I Ever Wrote?

Is this the perfect moment for writing a sad poem?
Raining hard, feeling like a bard
Holding a pen, lost in thoughts
Outpouring, as raindrops softly and quietly Kiss the grass on the backyard lawn

As always, I’m alone and lonesome
Nine months have passed, yet everything’s virtually the same
Would Time ever give birth to laughter and mirth?

Will I remember this someday
As the saddest year of my life?
Would these be the loneliest leaves of my diary?
Should this be the bleakest part of my biography?

Suddenly a black-furred squirrel sneaks into the lawn
Looking for something to eat or, perhaps, checking the raindrops

But in my mind, it’s just a solitary squirrel
staring at a man wandering in his mind…
Or could be, a solitary man staring at a
squirrel wandering under the rain

Whatever…does not matter anymore
When feelings are overwhelming
Reasons no longer count after all

I have come to an age when the joys and woes,
The fun and pains of my past
Pour down like rain

The stillness of the trees
The coldness of the breeze
The numbness in my heart
The sameness of the rain
The sadness in my childhood
The arrogance in my youth

Are these reasons for this perfect moment?
Am I really alone in this kind of situation?
Or am I simply expressing something natural and universal?
That every being—human, other animals, or plant—
is cursed most of their lives with solitariness and loneliness
And with the longing to belong with someone or
with others of their own kind

Is there really happiness after sadness?
Is there really togetherness after solitariness?
Is there really belongingness after loneliness?
Is there really heaven or hell after death?
Or is sadness only the default state
From where every being strives to escape?
While Heaven and Hell are just the
personification of everything good and evil on Earth?

Is this really the perfect moment for writing a sad poem?
Could this someday be the saddest poem I ever wrote?
Could I then someday be among
The saddest poets one will have ever known?

Suddenly a black crow perches on the backyard fence
Braving the rain, just to feast on its piece of grain;
while I:

Still the same hopeful man with a pen in his
hand and a heart full of dreams—

For I am a yan yong you hong hu zhi
‘little sparrow with dreams of swans’


"That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost——
"The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, who we were, we are the same no longer."— Pablo Neruda, “Saddest Poem”


- 9:00 a.m., May 26, 2004, Wednesday; Surrey, British Columbia, Canada (While listening to "Tragic Comedy" by Immaculate Fools, [Dumb Poet; 1987, A&M])