World Literature:
Tian Yuan
(China/Japan)
Memory (Poem)
Like a subterranean river
A person’s memory purls along
Never knowing weariness
It flows beyond death
The memory of history
Is like a great ocean never disappearing
Though earth itself may be destroyed
It will flow off toward other planets
The memory of god
Is like the ever-silent sky
Never uttering a word
Even when truth is under attack
The memory of war
Is a graveyard covered with shifting sands
Even when shrapnel rusts away
Sorrow will remain in that place
Trees cannot remember the color green
Though all is concealed in their growth rings
It will be exposed by a steel saw, without mercy
Translation from Chinese by Denis Mair
