Lost Bloom

Divorce is becoming more common in modern China.

You are God’s best-kept secret, Li Xiaojun,

Your smile lights up the dimmest, darkest day,

And in your eyes, there shines a love so strong

That men are shamed, and look the other way.

 

For men are shallow, falling at your feet,

Protest undying love, then look a-stare

To see some dark-eyed daughter in the street,

And think that heaven has moved, to your despair.

 

While you provide what life has left to give,

Though age approaches, nothing turns your head,

Your eyes are fixed on what the elders teach

That love endures, until that love is dead!

 

Until that love is dead, or walks away,

Your love is faithful, fixed on one alone,

But this was never seen as quite enough

By those, whose feet were always set to roam.

 

Your culture still dictates the way you live,

The way you cleave to thoughts he may return,

That you may once again fill up his skies,

His one horizon, once he’s come back home.

 

In China, there’s no heaven, and no hell,

Except the place the lonely woman walks,

Who, long betrayed, seeks only to dispel

Her sadness, and her dreadful sense of loss!

 

Forget the past, forget the wayward feet,

Look only to the future now, Xiaojun,

The best is yet to come, your lover’s fate

Will seek you out, before this life has done.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[clisa]

Very beautiful - it opens up a little window into Chinese culture.