Let me return! Let me go!
Let me return to the tropics with its burning sun,
Back to the great forest and the great ocean!
I can no longer tarry in this ancient fatherland.
Let me go, let me return to the bosom of the wild plains!
Fatherland, it was only the family records, sealed with dust,
that made me contact you.
You have done enough to raise me using your intricate
culture and rituals.
You have chipped away and smoothed out my rough form-
Hah-thank you.
Fatherland, although you pounded the fibers of my vigorous
spirit
into delicate threads,
But, but, my soul was never converted!
Just look, the sun of the Southern Sea has colored my eyes red.
Just listen, the wild calls in the distance are piercing my
eardrums.
You probably never realized that here,
My eyes cannot bear to look any more at these infinitesimal,
stilted
written characters,
My ears cannot bear to hear any more these plaintive lyrics
from
a thousand year-old tomb.
My eyes, by nature, want to see tattooed totems, plantains and
palms,
My ears, by nature, want to hear the calls of animals in the
night
and the simple sounds of drums in the mountains.
I have my own music and images!
Elderly father, severe father, my fatherland, look at your son:
My hands and feet and this brain
Have been beaten by an iron ruler into a nervous breakdown.
The mother of the Southern Sea calls from there to awaken me.
I want to cast you off. As for you, why don't you loosen those
ten devilish fingers of yours.
Let me go so I can flee to the refuge of my wildly beautiful
mother!
Let me return to the tropics with its burning sun, back to the
forests,
back to the ocean!
Let me go! Let me go! Let me return!
Let me return! Let me go!
During my college years,
I only wanted to love books and care for you, whom I was
unworthy to wed.
In my old age,
I can only see before me you, and the "yous" that you gave
birth to and mothered.
When you were young and but sixteen,
You said you loved French baby-dolls more than anything.
An abundantly beautiful, French baby-doll
was a gift that you achingly longed for.
After our wedding,
You had a change of heart, growing wiser and ever more
alluring.
Indeed, your clever, supple womb produced real babies.
My pile of books ought to have grown smaller
As the babies arrived, one by one.
The fragrance of a book that wafts to the far beyond
could not invade the hot-house of a child with its sweet
perfume.
Despite our affluence,
You never neglected the painstaking job of raising our wily and
clever babies.
I could only feel joy while agreeing with our relatives and
friends
who praised your methods.
Our babies had a future more real than baby dolls.
One by one, they went with their father into the city
to study at the best schools.
Their precociousness certainly made their father feel content
as he toiled.
My foolish doting could not compare to the stupidity of the
old ox
Who did not know he was fortunate
As he slowly walked along with the little midget seated back-
ward
on his rough back singing a song.
And, during the lean year
You went to the market
And were able to pick out with skill stem after stem of vita-
min-rich
greens to nourish our children.
I can only sigh with appreciation for your self-sacrifice.
When I came home at night covered with chalk
and sat down in my chair, panting for breath,
I saw you with our daughter at your feet
while you knelt down to scrub the floor of a poverty-stricken
scholar.
On this cold, wintry night while sick in my hospital bed,
you brought our son and daughters who, with a single
concern,
look after me.
Farewell, you who I leave behind.
Farewell, babies in a joyful picture with you, virtuous wife
and devoted mother like an angel.
I'm sorry that I leave you with a pile of rotting books.
When you move in the future,
You'll have to waste money to hire an ox-cart and driver
to haul them away.
I have lived the life of a poverty-stricken scholar
whose seed will survive for a thousand generations!
How dare I boast that though poor, I am unaware of my own
"greatness."
It is for the sake of the ancestors and the hundred generations
to come
and especially for you, whom I deeply love.
1970
(Written on Teacher's Day, I tried to destroy it three times but
still preserved it.)
We are a bunch of stars from the creation of the universe.
The shimmering and flickering are all
Various deep thoughts on our suffering.
A genuine fear is that the Milky Way, after an eternity,
Won't be bright enough to break the dark night among mankind
and form the white sun,
Long causing old grannies to tell many tales in the chilly wind.
Won't it happen that one day,
After congealing and more congealing fusion,
And a round sun suddenly appears in the night?
On earth, the injured will cry out, dogs will howl in the night,
and thieves will roam about!
This moment will allow us to spread across and occupy
a section of the sky,
And hurriedly turn stars deep in thought into
a hail of flashing meteors!
I smelled the sickly air and black smoke all around me,
Then felt disgust over this Chinese face of mine.
I buried my face in my arms on the table,
Intent on rubbing out my ears, eyes, mouth, and nose.
Underneath, I found half of a broken, square mirror
To reflect the deep soul of this despondent people.
I dared not look up, fearing that I might encounter
the dark shadows of my fellow Chinese.
So I ran to the side of a mountain brook,
to wash out my eyes with the spring water.
For a long time, my dark and gloomy face had shrewdly sought
refuge
in the brook water. I glanced at it, became furious, and with
a stone
smashed its reflection.
Muddled as if falling asleep, I dreamily walked over
to some decrepit houses, was helped by someone into
a small room, looked up, and saw about ten faces.
I seated myself in a corner to let these people's silence
encroach, calmly awaiting everyone's eyelids to
close as they die in peace.
Some of the faces said, "Criticize!" "Thank you!" "Be healthy!"
It was hard to believe these faces, I could only regard them
as reflections.
They began to intone poetry, debate, investigate things.
Every face lit up, vying to question, answer, laugh!
There was no longer any doubt, everyone's sounds were alive;
This new existence was proven by the mass of faces clamoring!
The fire in my heart was rekindled. I joined in the hubbub and
spoke out.
I stood face to face with the lovable faces of these Chinese
people.
If you shut the thick, heavy Western book
with a bang,
Climb up from the chair onto the table, and from the table,
pull yourself up to the roof-beams,
If you break through the tiled ceiling of the library with your
hands,
If you break through the roof,
You can stand high above
And gaze in all four directions!
You look towards the north-the back side of the school!
A few bare, crumbling hills
are filled with abandoned graves of yellow earth.
The patches of sparse, dry grass
emit sultry, rotten vapors of decomposing corpses.
Several wild dogs dig up new graves where a black, cackling
flock of crows
happily feast!
You look towards the west-the school's neighbor on the right!
Here and there are a few places where tattered mats of reeds
are wrapped around dens,
Where wriggling, rag-tag hunchbacks,
deformed beings between humans and animals
With faces smeared and sticky eyes, still huddling together,
are raising the next generation!
An elegant, secluded English garden is companion to the
lonely,
desolate lotus pond.
The pond (aside from a remnant bone of Chen Yuanyuan*
that stirs up
a small swirl on the water's surface) is calm,
Coolly reflecting streaks of ash-white clouds and the purple
tips of the trees.
You look towards the south-beyond the front gate of the
school!
Inside the broken-down wall of Kunming city**
beside the convulsive, green lake,
There are thousands of ordinary people's houses,
shaking and about to collapse, holding each other up
as they cluster together,
Their windows decorated inside with colorful merchandise,
lit with electric lights, as thousands of people drunkenly
dance!
Just as you are gazing about, you suddenly look back and see
dust arising on all four sides,
One group after another of living skeletons in military uniforms
are limping by,
Their bones beneath a layer of dry skin, faces with mud and
ashes,
and deep, sunken eyes whose whites turn towards the sky
As if they are a crowd of dead souls
surrounding the round wall of the school night and day.
Did you see all of them? Did you see all of them? Steady
yourself!
Steady yourself!
Your feet are shaking on the roof. Your clear, shiny teardrop
Has pierced the roof tiles and slowly fallen to the ground. The
tear is probably
warm.
Come down, come down. You should go back to burying your
head
to read the thick, heavy book once more.
* Chen Yuanyuan (1623-c.1695) was a famous courtesan from
Suzhou who was involved in the dramatic events of the fall of
the Ming dynasty in 1644.
** Kunming is the provincial capital of Yunnan province
which borders Vietnam.
You, who were banished by a dream,
Yesterday
Arrived back in a dream of a dream
Scene: into that dark, secluded,
Expansive house of yours,
I, excited as usual,
Walked in though I also seemed to have walked out
With a firm, unconscious march
Like a young, victorious general
Who walks over to inspect a deserted, ancient palace
On the veranda,
A shadow flickers
In a raven-black, thin dress
And raven-black, flowing locks
That set forth the white face of a young maiden from Nanhai,*
You, who walk nearer to me.
This entangling familiarity
Reveals so many old longings.
This detachment
Suggests so many years of youth spent waiting in vain.
Your face has the same nonchalance,
Eyes effortlessly staring at me
As you are unable to utter even a word.
I stop for a bit, look at you with passion,
Suddenly remembering our love affair.
From your silence I can hear
The sounds of a complaint:
"Young man, is it true that you only intend,
In this world without borders,
To suddenly leave?"
I invite your soul
To walk out of this dream of a dream,
To pass through the realm of dreams
Into my everyday memory.
Please ascend a sparkling, divine throne
And forever accept the bows of regret
From this heartless being.
* "Nanhai" (Southern Sea) refers here to the coastal area in
Vietnam by the South China Sea.
Poetry, you vaulting beauty.
Such a dazzling, udumbara blossom,*
Such an unlucky, short-lived ghost.
Get out of the way!
Get out of the way!
Let the oceanic blue-green of philosophy,
The cliff-like firmness of scientific laws,
The steely shimmer of social reform plans
These writings that can save mankind
Let them make their way into the hands of this youth!
Poetry! Have you a kind heart?
Wipe the rouge off your face!
Poetry, ashamed, replied,
"Sir, I would get out of the way,
But the youth won't let go of me.
He has grabbed hold of me.
Maybe, sir, your times are full of suffering."
All right, youth, let me ask you:
This dark spirit of poetry with her unbound hair?
Do you not fear her because of your purposeful reason?
The youth painfully replied,
"I am afraid. Of course I fear her!
But there are frightening sounds
(Perhaps, old sir, you do not hear them).
They are the war drums for killing people,
The pulsing veins of those who are bleeding,
The growling stomachs of those who are starving,
The gasping breaths of those sick with typhoid,
The mad roar of the sea,
The groans of the suffocating mountains.
They won't leave me at peace for a second.
Those sounds-it's those sounds that make me start to jump
around."
As the youth spoke, he turned and hugged poetry with one
arm:
"You, with your vaulting beauty,
Such a dazzling udumbara blossom,
Such an unlucky, short-lived ghost.
Your shadow flickers together with those sounds.
In the midst of my fears, I will kiss you anyway."
*The udumbara is a large white flower that blossoms only for
a brief time.
The sky's entire body is covered with purple scars.
(Last night, the demon of winter burst in
and there was a fierce battle.)
The sky, its entire body black and blue, lies paralyzed,
sinking heavily toward our heads, already colliding
with the tips of the pine in front of the classroom.
The arched sky has fallen.
The earth's surface is a dark, demonic shade.
A black, devilish haze forms in the middle of the classroom.
The teacher's flashing eyes lose their clarity
As flickering phantoms dance beside him.
The blackboard, that symbol of blankness, has blurred the
edges
of its squared shape.
I look outside through the window.
The black has lost its luster on the old raven on the pine
branch.
In the raven's black shadow, fluttering strands of delicate
threads-rain?
Facing that huge black stretch of city wall-the blackboard
outside the window-
I observe traces of white rain-isn't it rain?
As I waver, the first clear, shiny drop has already fallen from
the eave of the roof.
A slice of yellow earth,
A path of yellow river,
A pile of yellow faces
Children in the south think from afar:
Ever since ancient times, the Central Plains have been this way.
The yellow earth hasn't produced grain for a long time,
The yellow river has overflowed again,
The yellow faces are even more famished and many have died!
Children in the south think from afar:
How could the Central Plains endure this disaster?
Over the yellow earth, iron horse hooves once again stampede,
The yellow river has already been crossed by enemy boats,
Our yellow-faced, fellow countrymen, suffering even more,
have arisen to struggle!
Children in the south think from afar:
Will the Central Plains be stripped of everything?
The yellow earth wants us to send grain!
The yellow river wants us to dispatch a great army!
The yellow-faced people want the sharpest spears from us!
Children in the south all swear:
China will hold the Central Plains unto death!
I don't dare think about home!
But this lamp makes me think of the lamp at home.
The lamp at home makes me think of the people
and the scene.
The door has probably been locked early,
and tonight, the family must be very quiet.
My sister-in-law and two nieces are sleeping, no doubt.
Look, in the empty living room, sitting in that chair ......
no, stop! I don't dare think about mother!
I don't dare think about mother!
But this lamp makes me think of the lamp at home,
makes me think of mother sitting alone in the empty room
deep in the night.
Her seated, immobile body makes me think about her hair
starting to turn white, her hair makes me think about
her anxious, sorrowful eyebrows, and below her eyebrows
a pair of dazed, wide-open ......
No, stop, I don't dare to think about mother's eyes even more!
But I thought further about mother's eyes in the deep of the
night.
Flickering in the pupils of her eyes, my elder brother who was
cruelly killed.*
Flickering in the pupils of her eyes, me, far away.
The rims of her eyes filled with two drops ......
No, stop, who can bear to think of his mother's tears?
* Mr. Truyen Anh Diep died in the war against Japan. He is
honored as one of the "Thirteen Martyrs" in the Hoi An War
Heroes Memorial.
The things are arranged like this:
Electric lights, each one made silent by their brilliance.
On the wall is a map of the Pacific Ocean, a slab of deep blue.
The song from the tropical forest brought here by the radio
is like seeing the thick lips of the natives opening and closing.
After the melody ceases, the static from the wireless,
Mingmingming, shashasha,
Recklessly scours and grabs hold of our minds.
Everything that is arranged this way,
Using machines and lights and electricity,
Tints this evening in a nightclub
Into a saddening kind of pleasure.
Outside the window is the eternally cold moon.
You would imagine a woman who is a spirit,
Her light purple lips trembling.
You would imagine that in India on a night like this,
Your younger brother in a steel helmet leans against
an armored car,
As military uniforms and weapons shoot forth
a shimmering blue.
Lights, a wireless radio, a moon,
And irrepressible thoughts and imaginings
All these arrangements
On behalf of this civilized and bellicose age
Emit a blue-colored sadness.
When I was just born,
And had not yet had a chance to cry,
I opened my eyes and caught a glimpse of-
I saw many young sprouts on the barren ground.
Suddenly, they all lifted their heads and straightened up as they grew bigger.
In the blink of an eye, the whole ground was filled with shady green leaves.
I saw clusters of little flowers on the trees.
Suddenly, they were in full bloom, then lost their petals and fell down.
In an instant, immense fruits swelled up like sap oozing through the bark of rubber trees.
I saw round chicks, flat ducklings, kittens, puppies, red mice,
And many strange, tiny animals wriggling on the ground.
Suddenly, their feathers and hair grow profusely.
In the blink of an eye, the whole world was filled with birds and beasts.
I saw, beyond the realm of these clusters of flowers, trees, birds, and beasts,
Groups of mountains and many oceans struggling with each other, floating and sinking.
In the blink of an eye, some of the oceans overwhelmed the mountains,
And some of the mountains then raised their heads up high in the midst of the oceans.
I saw, beyond the struggling mountains and oceans,
Many rainbows, the sun and moon, and stars.
Suddenly, the bands of rainbow colors blended with each other,
The sun and moon chased each other around,
Stars flowed across and dimmed, then blazed forth again.
In the blink of an eye, a few comets swept by.
Just as I was about to let out my first cry,
Suddenly, I couldn't see a thing any more.
Before I could feel joy or sadness,
I quickly died a premature death.
