I Thrum for News of You

 

Xiao Wei, since whomever

I did well by, I want to touch

The dewy blanket, the space between our lives

All night long, as if ~

The youth I can’t remember

Bid me farewell, they are the very ones

Who injure me most of all

That I long to hold most of all

Xiao Wei, if I cannot say your name

Then to whose voice shall I dispel

Come now, sing this, all of you

And add your voices for the ocean whales

And the life I would have loved

Had you been of my own culture

Had you been of my own care

The unmarried woman is, a prayer gone wild

For humankind, and maidens to keep a vigil for

The brides are gone, forever more

To the genes of old, they renew their force

In little faces, and mothering grace

But Xiao Wei, how much time is left?

Until you too walk the thorny veils

I won’t be able to hear your voice

Shaking inside my breast, for much too long

That I cannot speak any more,

When your tongue breaks down and you

Are silent, I thrum for news of you.