Tuesday, 5 November 2013

3 Poems trans. by Zhinjian Tao

A Life Mailed Out

My dream
Was that sheet of paper in my bag
Mailed out
With my memories to
The banks of Saint Lawrence River

When I opened the bag
A gust of sea wind took it away
And took also
The words written on it
I was lost
Lost also was, more sadly
The writing brush
I had used in my child days

I passed by
The old town by Saint Lawrence River
Where both men and women love
Kissing
As they savour their French wines
A flash of lips under the red candle
Flew by my eyes
And I saw that
Saint Lawrence River needed not
My senses, nor
That pair of cloth shoes
On my feet

I recall
On the sheet of paper was a finger print
And beside it, my home address
But that
The memories that were taken away
Like broken-away kites
Were spread over my soul’s course
The package that Mother mailed out
Had turned into
A faded stamp
That was fixed
On the banks of Saint Lawrence River


The Fortuities of a Shoe (1)

One morning, a shoe got lost
By pure fortuity
Following a storm, it landed far
On the other side of the ocean

The day was getting dark
In hunger, it walked toward the light-dotted
City
Wishing to find home, and the other shoe

The other shoe, however, was waiting for it
In front of the door it departed from
Day and night


The Fate of a Novel

You cast the novel
You had been writing over a decade
On the road of your distant journey
You let streams of traffic roll the story into pebbles
And you let rain wash it to the roadside
You thought
No words of joy and tears
Would remain from it
But
Maybe one day
I will in the blowing wind
Read of the plots
Which I guess
Will be mottos carved on mileposts

No comments:

Post a Comment