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).