Sue Zhu: “The Unforgettable Snow and other poems”

The Poetryzine magazine presents the selected poems by the New Zealander-Chinese poet Sue Zhu

The Wooden Fish*

Let’s Mediate

How the wooden fish

being hammered

Thousands of times

But still able to breathe.

It tells us that

Survival always goes

together with suffering

You need to think of

impermanence as normal

The wooden fish is silent

Yet always awakened

Holding tolerance and forbearance

(*Wooden fish - also known as a Chinese temple block or wooden bell,

in most Zen/Ch'an Buddhist traditions,

the wooden fish serves to keep

the rhythm during sutra chanting)

Translated by George Onsy (Egypt)

The Unforgettable Snow

A few snowflakes moved ahead towards JiangCheng*，

gently touched down ashore until the end of the year

They were caught away by the cruel cold wind,

Recruited frantically the soldiers, the troops

And the horses set to raid the city.

Everything was targeted

No one was able to escape

Now, all is covered with pale whiteness

Faces, mouths, even doors and windows

Are all, all masked

The lockdowns have sealed the towns

Horror reigned over each plain and plateau

From the Yangtze river to the farthest end of the globe

Across the four oceans

From one season to another

In the daytime snow is soft and sporadic

At night, it is as hard as a steel block

I can hear the branches squeaking out,

Eaves being crushed,

Avalanches roaring in the distance

Oh, elegant white elves, where have you gone?

Sobering at midnight, counting the sheep, stars and days in silence

Peaceful holy moonlight

Shines on the white walls and sheets

With boundless mercy and grace

People in their sleepless plight struggle to pray,

Longing for the sooner

“The rooster crow louder at dawn…"*

*(JiangCheng: A nick name for

Wuhan of China)

*(“The rooster crow louder at dawn…”

This sentence was quoted from a poem titled "To the Wine" by Lihe who was a poet of Tang Dynasty of China, he wanted to say that when dawn comes, the night ends and all the truth comes out. Since the beginning of Coronavirus in Wuhan, it has spread to attack the whole world and people have been eager to know the truth about where it had come from in order to avoid it would happen again in the future.)

Translated by Sue Zhu ( New Zealand)

Edited by George Onsy ( Egypt)

Every snowflake comes

with its own metaphor

A small butterfly sleeping on my forehead

Must not have been in a dream

cicadas singing around the red cherry tree

A cloud of white butterflies

Stopping, then gliding down

It's an unexpected moment

an unexpected encounter with no reason

For a long time, the idea of writing has been just raised up

Its silhouette merged into the light source in the distance

quickly disappeared

Oh, a tiny white butterfly

has a noble rich past life

flying out of the slender river in this life

Bring its own mission to cross the sea

For the sky

For the earth

Or just for one person

A Big snow falls deeply in his heart

*Sue Zhu is a New Zealander-Chinese poet, artist, a member of the Chinese Poetry Society, a director of the NZ Poetry and Art Association, honorary director of the US-China Culture and Art Center, the NZ representative of Italy art literary movement “Immagine and Poesia”, co-founder of the “All Souls Poetry”, she serves more than 20 Chinese magazines and poetry clubs as an advisor and editor. In 2021 she got the “Poiesis Award” for Excellence in Poetry in the “Rabindranath Tagore Award” International Contest, won the 2nd New Zealand CoCo literary award and “Sahitto International Award for Literature 2021”. In 2020 she won the Italian “Il Meleto di Guido Gozzano X Literary Award”, and was nominated for “Pushcart Prize” (USA).

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