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Poetry

Crow

By Xiao Kaiyu
Translated from Chinese by Alistair Noon

I learned the lines of this noun
one bright day in the classroom.
That evening I saw its black wings
detach from the sky and descend
in circles like a parachute
toward us, my sister and me,
to cover our bodies.
Oh, my sister came out from under the walnut tree
that stood in the yard, slowly,
carefully walking into her bedroom,
right into the mouth of a giant crow.
Later, far from home, among demolished houses,
on my heart’s wall, I saw a squadron of crows
suddenly take off, advance warning of death,
a battalion of crow-clouds, and I thought of my sister.
She had married a man
in the single, narrow street of that village
in a small shop selling groceries.

English

I learned the lines of this noun
one bright day in the classroom.
That evening I saw its black wings
detach from the sky and descend
in circles like a parachute
toward us, my sister and me,
to cover our bodies.
Oh, my sister came out from under the walnut tree
that stood in the yard, slowly,
carefully walking into her bedroom,
right into the mouth of a giant crow.
Later, far from home, among demolished houses,
on my heart’s wall, I saw a squadron of crows
suddenly take off, advance warning of death,
a battalion of crow-clouds, and I thought of my sister.
She had married a man
in the single, narrow street of that village
in a small shop selling groceries.

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