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Voices 21

志四方
苦難當
何有碍
入醫房
口忠節
口污傷
[ 出 ] 祖国
口返唐

My ambition as grand as the four directions;
This bitterness is hard to bear.
What problem was it
That put me in a hospital room?
I am loyal and principled,
But now shamed and wounded.
I had departed my ancestral country,
But am now deported back to Tang.

Listen to the poem in Cantonese ⏯

Island 23

今日為冬末
明朝是分春
交替兩年景
愁煞木樓人

Today is the last day of winter;
Tomorrow morning is the vernal equinox.
One year's prospects have changed to another.
Sadness kills the person in the wooden building.

Listen to the poem in Cantonese ⏯

Translations:
Egan, Charles. Voices of Angel Island: Inscriptions and Immigrant Poetry, 1910-1945. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.
Lai, H. Mark, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung, eds. Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940. Second edition. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014.