Chou Meng-Tieh's "The Instant" (周夢蝶之《剎那》)

《剎那》 當我一閃地顫慓於 我在愛著什麼時 我覺得我的心 如垂天的鵬翼 在向外猛力地擴張又擴張 永恆 剎那間凝駐於「現在」的一點 地球小如鴿卵 我輕輕地將它拾起 納入胸懷 周夢蝶

The Instant When I tremble for an instant In what I love I feel my heart As wings of the Peng hanging from the sky Fiercely expanding and expanding  outwards  Eternity Instantly congealed into a point of “the moment” The earth small as a dove’s egg Gingerly I pick it up Taking it into my bosom                                                                                       (tr. El Zorro)

Chou Meng-tieh ( 周夢蝶)  (b 1921) is a Taiwanese poet and writer, born in Xichuan County of Henan Province, Republic of China, left China in 1948 as part of the China Youth Corp for Taiwan together with the Kuomintang army, leaving behind his wife, two sons and a daughter. He started writing writing poetry for the Central Daily News in 1952, then retired from the army in 1956 joined the Blue Star Poetry Society (藍星詩社) established in about 1954 to promote and developing poetry in the Chinese tradition and emphasizing local color and whose members include 余光中、覃子豪、鐘鼎文、羅門、蓉子、敻虹 and others and  in 1959, started selling newspapers and literary magazines outside of the Café Astoria at Wuchang street (武昌街) at the heart of Taipei and published his first book of poetry called "Lonely County"《孤獨國》and started Buddhist Zen meditation in 1962. In 1980, the  American magazine, "Orientations" praised him as the "Amoy Street Prophet" ("Oracle on Amoy Street"）but later the same year, he was forced to close his book stall because gastric ulcer surgery. He also won the National Culture and Arts Foundation Literature Laureate Award (第一屆國家文化藝術基金會「桂冠文學類」獎章.) in 1997. His name Meng-tieh is a reference to a character in ChuangTzu's famous allegory of a man who did not know whether he was the butterfly dreaming that he was himself or himself dreaming that he was a butterfly. His poetry collections include the following:
1. 《孤獨國》1999 acknowledged as a Taiwan Literary Classic 「台灣文學經典」
2. 《還魂草》
3. 《周夢蝶世紀詩選》
4. 《約會》
5. 《十三朵白菊花》