Requiem
By Bei Dao
Translated By Eliot Weinberger
for Shanshan
The wave of that year
flooded the sands on the mirror
to be lost is a kind of leaving
and the meaning of leaving
the instant when all languages
are like shadows cast from the west
life's only a promise
don't grieve for it
before the garden was destroyed
we had too much time
debating the implications of a bird flying
as we knocked down midnight's door
alone like a match polished into light
when childhood's tunnel
led to a vein of dubious ore
to be lost is a kind of leaving
and poetry rectifying life
rectifies poetry's echo
Copyright Credit: "Requiem" by Bei Dao, translated by Eliot Weinberger and Iona Man-Cheong, from Unlock, copyright © 2000 by Zhao Zhenkai. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
Source: Unlock (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2000)