On accepting death, finally, translated…
She is My Daughter
But She, Ran Away
Perhaps, it’s the Wind, the Night Skies
The Stars, the Clouds, the Sunsets Tempting Her on
The River Flowed, the Grasses Grew
I Don’t Know How to, Call Her Back
She was My Daughter of the Past
Born, into the Night, Forgotten, by Sunrise
She was, Never, Returned to My Side
Only Left a Letter, at that High Tower of the Ancient Times
Under the Mulberry Tree, with One Solitary Leaf Fallen Beneath it
Before, the Hooves of, a Fatigued, Steed
Maybe Time had, Never, Left
But, I’d Not Seen Her at Chang-An, Nor Taipei
The Galaxies on the Posters, in the, Nighttime Skies
My Dreams, Premeditated, an Everlasting Dance
My Daughter Who’d, Left, Did She, Venture from the Life Before, to the Next Life Already
What is She Doing Now
As the Rain Falls, the Pond Pretending to be Asleep
That White-Feathered Bird with Its Wings, Damp, Flew Across the Skies
Those Pieces of Driftwood Stood, on the Distant Mountains
Walking Down the, Unknown Paths, Did She, Hear My Calls Out to Her
From Afar
And so, this, is on death, the narrator had lost his child, and, perhaps, she’d died, just a few days after birth, but, no matter how brief the time the man had with her, he’d, already, loved her very much, and, this poem, is his process of, letting her go.
