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Low Flight

Translated from the Chinese by Chen Du & Xisheng Chen

Who prescribes that with wings spread one must fly high

Low flight is also a flight

With wind rustling like birds’ chirps

And wheels speeding like shooting stars

The meal delivery note attached to a takeout

In clear black and white symbolizes urgency

Like a legal document and a magic incantation

 

From the three hundred and sixty industries

Rushes out a new career

And from the twenty-four solar terms

One for deliverymen

A time cruncher catches sixty-one minutes from an hour

And delivers tenderness racing against time

 

They pave the second and minute hands on the road

Like a well-arranged black-and-white keyboard

Who can say highbrow songs must find few singers

The sound low on the ground

Is the symphony for all things striving upward

If there’s a fifth season in the human world

It must be spring for deliverymen