Vignettes of a South African Township called Mdantsane

Saturday, April 30, 2011

The Poetry of Liu Xiaobo

Photobucket

One Letter Is Enough

for Xia


one letter is enough
for me to transcend and face
you to speak

as the wind blows past
the night
uses its own blood
to write a secret verse
that reminds me each
word is the last word

the ice in your body
melts into a myth of fire
in the eyes of the executioner
fury turns to stone

two sets of iron rails
unexpectedly overlap
moths flap toward lamp
light, an eternal sign
that traces your shadow.

Published in PEN America
Watercolor Drawing by Amitabh Mitra

2 comments:

  1. Vintage Amitabh---lyrical, sometimes angry and protesting, but subdued and in control.
    A treat for tired minds; antidote to anaemic versification that passes in the name of poetry these days.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Sunilbhai
    This happens to be a translation, u can very well imagine how the original work in Chinese would be

    ReplyDelete