On life and death, translated…
Back When My Mother Gave Birth to Me (Yeah, My Father Took Part in it too!)
It Was a Tragedy of, Bloodshed
My Mother’s Doors Opened & Closed
My Father, in a Total Panic
My Cries, Startled the Entire Neighborhood
But My Parents Had, Welcomed Me to This World with Their Laughter
With that Funny-Looking Belly Button as the Witness to
This Tragic Comedy
And, This Old and Beaten Body
Weathered Through Both World Wars
The Rape of Nanking, the Bombings on Chungking
(I Was a Part of It All) Bearing Witness to
The Cruel Acts Under the Bushido Swords
My Father & Mother Had Long Gone Now
The Graves at Memorial Day, the Offerings on New Year’s Eves
Don’t Know Where Their Souls Had Gone? Now it’s My Turn
to Ask, to Worry about
Where to Head to Next; Can I Follow My Wife, Where She Went Too, and Where Shall She Be
Waiting for Me, Can I, Wait for Her
Wherever She’d, Gone
All of These, I’d, Asked the Theists, the Religionists
the Saints, the Voodoo Doctors Too
And, Underneath the Starry Skies
the Philosopher Had Also, Asked Himself Too
But at This Moment, It’s the Scholar, the Scientist Asking
Where is Guan-Zhong Yu’s Soul Supposed to Go: the Poles, the Longitudes, the Latitudes, Where, Can We, Find Him His Final Place of Rest? And, Are the Prophets, Believable at All? Life is Short, the Lightyears, Long, is there Such a Thing as Lightyears, the Scientists Inquired, and on This Matter
Someone is Bound to Press on You to Collect, Whether or You Believe if
You Can Escape, from the Untimely, Timely Deaths
And that would be, how fragile human life is, and, it makes you feel humbled, standing in such a great presence of fate as well as the universe, doesn’t it? Because we all have an expiration date, and when it comes, nothing matters afterwards, and nothing matters as you were born, it’s the time that’s in-between that’s counted the most.