Thursday, February 02, 2012

Aung San Suu Kyi

Someone will be set free and stay as eternal
as the green of the dry season

Someone will be set free and be as sour-black
as the monsoon

Someone will be set free and will run
or tire

And the sky will shrink and the stars
Shift


And between the pole of the seven flags and the pale peak
of the pagoda


Someone will be set free
and disappear

But perhaps someone will be set free and see
the dangling stems

stems on the handkerchief tree,
stems on the slopes of the road
to Mandalay


1996-1997


(Translated from the original by Eddin Khoo)