THE
NIGHT
-
Guan Yu (China)
In the cloak of night, I trailed in her shadow’s wake
Up the spiral staircase. What a serpentine path we take!
Each level was dim-lit by the lantern-glow,
Like stars sending light-energy frail and low.
Our forms cast silhouettes that dance
On the floor in a collective trance.
Time, a faithless lover, erases lines I write;
The wind snatches my sighs, a thief of the night.
Foot-bones, like stones, build our buried history,
as skeletal arches mark our failed victory.
In nightly up and downs, we meet the mighty hands,
shuffling us like a deck for the Ace of Diamonds in us.
She speaks of seasons’ secrets, spring-bloom, fall-fade,
In which, she says, one must learn the art of self-shade.
Up the white, marked steps, with her ballet-feet,
She rises,as a dance master to the night-sonnet.
In the night-embrace, each stair whispers a song,
weaving a tapestry of notes lingering long.
(Translated by Zhu Yage)
****