My twin brother is gone
who used to sing aloud
ancient Chinese poems
his sonorous voice
striking plucking
the strings of moonbeams
My twin brother is gone
who used to stand alone
in the stubby wheat field
envisioning all humans
emerging from the peak
of flesh and desires
My twin brother is gone
who used to remember our father
sitting on the handle of his hoe
in the shadow of a willow
his bamboo pipe extending
from his thick lips
to the edge of a ditch
muffled memories channeling
through puffs of smoke
My twin is gone
who used to recall our mother
seated in the warm kitchen
telling tales with her chapped
wrinkled hands
webbing weaving hardships
sufferings into jumpers
for us to huddle in
My twin brother is gone
who committed suicide
leaving a note in his coat
saying his death has nothing
to do with anyone or anything
in this country
or in this history
My brother is gone
now I am still alive
like a pair of chopsticks
with one missing
like a pair of glasses
with one cracked
like a pair of compasses
with one broken
My twin brother is gone
and I have to live on
like my grandmother
when her sister was raped
then cut open
by a Japanese soldier
My twin brother is gone
and I have to live on
like my grandfather
when his brother was shot
while both uniformed
were lying in an ambush
against the Japanese army
My twin brother is gone
I must survive like my mother
when her brother
was flogged to death
in the Cultural Revolution
My twin brother is gone
I must survive like my father
when his sister
was starved to death
in the Great Leap Forward
My twin brother is gone
and I am to live on
as a single trouser leg
or a single sleeve
to exhibit to my children
what has been
what was and what is
in this quasi-world
|
Chao is a bi-lingual poet, Bible scholar and professor of Modern American poetry at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China. He has been writer-in-residence at Edith Cowan University, University of Melbourne and University of Sidney, and a visiting scholar at University of Westminster and London School of Theology. He was anthologized as one of Twenty Contemporary Australian Writers by The Cimarron Review in USA in 1997 and has published five collections of poetry.
|
|