More poems and contributor notes inChinese feature
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Woeser (Weise in Chinese)
from Tibet Above
After a Few Years
After a few years
You are at the original place
I am at the opposite end
ride on a plane
in a car
and I have already arrived there
After a few years
You have aged some
I have aged some
We seem to have been aging at the same time
still young
have tempers
After a few years
completely covered in dust
my countenance is also lost
Yet importuning poise
I take some bones
as jewelry
Hang them on my chest
as if without a second thought
After a few years
Your appearance
so very clean
An air of books
as if seventeen
as if the innermost teardrops
added a luster
that no one could out shine
After a few years
At last sitting together
first a little distant
then slightly closer
The voices carrying on around us
sights strange and colorful
I wish to speak but refrain
You wish to speak but do the same
What else can be said
Night in Lhasa
Night in LhasaLhasa! an imaginary night
A few lotus flowers never blooming
A few glasses easily broken
A few people, this demeanor given by
whom, make the flowing feast
a paradise of self-exile
Those unseen torrential tears
are only for a loved one who cannot stay
Lhasa! a sorrowful night
A few bluebirds never singing
A few coats covered with dust
A few people, these diseases spread by
whom, make the fleeting moments
pools of drowned self-expression
Those innumerable bewitching images
cannot call back a lost loved one!
Lhasa! a rare night
A few affections never arriving
A few bloodlines gradually intermixed
A few people, like what kind of
lightning, make the overarching pre-ordinances
the fated chance of affinitive coalescence
Yet, amidst that never ending transformation
I wish you will ever be my loved one!
Evening on the Second of June
It was said to be evening, but the sky above the temple was especially bright
Light shining for so long, and we just started to detect?
Impressive and vulgar, isn’t this the deepest aim of architecture like this?
If it snows, the tribal mountains also have this appearance
The temple usually looks like a mountain, something on top of the mountain
silently growing, and finally is another name that
we have always said imperfectly
This kind of transformation finely, suddenly, penetrates to the heart
Fortunately, in our distant place
like that temple, we gradually ascend in prayer
In the passing days and months, in unending transformation
I can see its immortal face
Every time I pass by, its hidden deer on the peaks are tears and pleas
Should one keep it all at an arm’s length?
If snow is falling, the mountains outside the window are like another country
I am in this very evening, centered by the temple’s inner space
Translated by d.dayton
