Birthdays

My elders
all clearly remember
how many teeth their cows and sheep
have lost
but don’t know which day their sons and daughters’ birthdays
are on

In Liangshan
cows and sheep are the elders’ banknotes
are their bricks for weighing fortunes
Compared to the age of their cows and sheep
the children’s birthdays
are trifles not worth mentioning

But I have to remember my son’s birthday
because now the cows and sheep
are few

Occasionally thinking of them________it’s best to
take those bills penned up in my pocket
and rush off to the pastures of the countryside
to while away withdrawal

Azhuo Wulin 阿卓务林 - Yi poet from China's southwest
from Heaven in my Ears

Purple Mist

A night in Chang’an
What is it since ancient times that floats between heaven and earth?
I say it’s purple mist
Someone else says
it’s haze

Yu Jian 于坚

from Anthology and Image

高鼻子 Big Nose

你这个鼻子
给我下去
一只凶恶的手来要变平我的脸
这是我妻子说的话而动的手
好像每一次我想跟她接吻
表现一些爱情
我白人血统的高级塔
就攻击她浮浅的微妙眼睛

她是中国来的神美女脸
而我是外来的野蛮高尖鼻
但是呢
谁动手？
谁温柔？

Make your nose
smaller!
An angry hand comes to flatten my face
These are my wife’s words and actions
Every time I want to kiss her
to express my love
my white person’s tower
invades her two delicately shallow eyes

She has the face of a Chinese goddess
and I have a foreigner’s barbarian nose
Yet, which one of us lifts a hand in anger
and which one is truly gentle?

The River's Two Shores

In that night
not just one person swam across the river
On the other shore fire mounds crackled
Trees’ shadows
floated as if imperceptible
A person spoke loudly,
all eyes silently shut
The tree of myth all at once lost its leaves

The river was deep and serene
whose eyesight could penetrate it,
who believed sour dates and fish's sleep-talk?
On top of the precipice
only mountain spirits
chants that repeated again and again
The people, soles dancing wildly
after trampling the withered tree roots
suddenly halted
The flint was continuously struck,
many faces never made out clearly

In that night
not just one person swam across the river
For a long long time
the sound of arms plowing through the water carried on

Shama 沙马 - Yi poet from China's southwest

from The Olive Tree in a Dream

A Tribute to the Camel 奉献给骆驼