Classic Poem

Back when we were children
in a hill village of yellow clay laid bare —
borne along on grandmother's back,
my sister and I
often heard the Blue Bird Song.

When creepers blazed red on each fence and wall and
sorghum heads stood high along the sides of fields,
shouts to scare the birds away could be heard on every side.

Oiyoh! Hwuoi!

Once the Japanese cop's cycle with its tinkling bell
had vanished into the distance,
we would wait beside our clay hovel
with racing hearts
for the old peddler woman who taught us her songs.

Seya, seya, p'arangseya . . .
Bird, bird, blue bird . . .
do not land in the green pea patch.
If the pea blossom falls
the pea-jelly merchant will go weeping away.

I'm not so sure but in those days
they used to say: if you sing that song
the acupuncture man will whisk you away.

The name has changed now, but
when midday came, a cannon boomed out beneath the sky:
" Let those who worked a lot take a lot to eat,
Let those who did not work eat nothing at all,
Ohoo . . . " it said.

On the hill at Kilatt'i,
as we gleaned for grains of bean or rice,
a formation of planes would go flying across the sky
and every time, my mother, with a troubled face
would seize my hand
and hurry me along the field path.

In those days some of the people who had experienced
those great events, were still living in this world;
their tales used to send my heart racing
and I intend to tell you some of them now.

Sometimes they wanted to sow seeds of their stories,
in memories that went scurrying from early morning
to the village hills and fields like carefree pups.

The seeds of those tales
would sprout leaves, and branches,
then at last, one autumn, blossom profusely.

Could they ever have imagined that?
That was why, in snow-swept midwinter
huddled at the warmest spot of the room
where bean-cakes were kept warm under blankets
and in midsummer's suffocating dog days, sitting beneath
the parched village tree, on one branch of which
Sunni's mother hanged herself, they cautiously used to talk,
whisking away cicada songs with their fans,

to us snot-nose kids
as we sat scratching our bellies,
our belly buttons bare.