Writing a Book of Remembrance

Yes, I was the one who heard her last words.

This is your Book of RemembranceYou want me to write someone’s name on itOf course she’s a great soul(Let me explainbecause this unfamiliar nameis distant to you,but it’s remarkable to mebecause I won’t ever forget it)She was oncea young womanwho cried silentlyon that evening when she changed her dressI don’t know whybut she criedShe had turned fifteenShe was marriedand left riding a white horseA shepherd from her side of the mountain followedand gave her a shawlPeople sayshe was coquettish when she was youngPeople sayshe was prettyMore people sayshe was a fine girlThen she became a motherand had several childrenBut her husband was a drunkShe was thirty-five that year She often laughed loudly, the sound of her laughter was sincereA woman had a difficult laborShe went to give her courage but the woman died anywayThat was the wintershe broke her leg in the doorwaywhile carrying a child she’d taken inShe was fifty that yearLater she grew truly oldShe often sat beside the firetelling stories to childrenOne summer,an endless summer,she died, as if in a dreamwhile she was talking and talkingOnly the child sleeping at her bosomclearly heard the last words she saidIt was a night of brilliant starlightShe turned seventy that very dayHer name wasJike JinsiThe last thing she said was:Child, love others with all your heart.