Children of the Moon
Rent from DeepDyve- Children of the Moon
Each time you return from the moon,you whisper to me:"I've been only to the garden nearbyfor a little while—a small insect there is dying . . ."Phantasy and fantasy—as if were the same and could bothescape from this world. But you, being lighterthan a cloud, can wander farwhile I am imprisoned here even by the air,rooted in this world by fate.Each time you come back in the night dew,you must have just arrived from the moon.You don't mention our withering flowersor the foul wind.It's late fall, and I see something in your eyesMaking them bluer. Evening chill takes you by the skirt.You already seem far away—but even when you are most distant,when the moon and osmanthus trees will have died,the scent from your lips will stay. [End Page 100]
Shen Wei 沈苇 was born in 1965 in Huzhou, Zhejiang province, and moved to Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in western China, in 1988. A teacher, journalist, and now editor-in-chief of the regional literary magazine The West, he has published seven books of poetry. He won the first Lu Xun Literature Award in 1998.
Ming Di 明迪 is a Chinese poet based in the U.S. She attended Boston College and Boston University, where she taught Chinese. She has published six books of poetry in Chinese along with a collaborative translation, River Merchant's Wife (2012). She co-translated The Book of Cranes by Zang Di (2015) with Neil Aitken, and Empty Chairs: Selected Poems by Liu Xia (2015) with Jennifer Stern, which was a finalist for the 2016 Best Translation Book Award. She edited and co-translated New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (2013) and New Poetry from China 1917–2017 (2019). In 2013 and 2014, she received Henry Luce Foundation fellowships. A co-founder of Poetry East West journal, she serves as the China editor for Poetry International Rotterdam. She has also translates from English into Chinese, most recently Observations by Marianne Moore (2018).
