Poem
Shuijing Zhulian
A Certain Tall Wall
cut off by a wallone portion of a great ship appears up above the wall
we are forced to welcome this suggestion:
the bit hidden by the wall
is the sea
we are all of us—endlessly, tedious—
imagining it
this wall that we’re imagining
gets higher and higher
longer and longer
it makes us all feel much more dismayed
than real sea would do
fragile sea—o
before I’d looked on you, the thought that intrigued me:
Why was it such a vast colossus could be so effortlessly
hidden away?
© Translation: 2003, Simon Patton
A CERTAIN TALL WALL
© 2003, Shuijing Zhulian
Poems
Poems of Shuijing Zhulian
Close
A Certain Tall Wall
cut off by a wallone portion of a great ship appears up above the wall
we are forced to welcome this suggestion:
the bit hidden by the wall
is the sea
we are all of us—endlessly, tedious—
imagining it
this wall that we’re imagining
gets higher and higher
longer and longer
it makes us all feel much more dismayed
than real sea would do
fragile sea—o
before I’d looked on you, the thought that intrigued me:
Why was it such a vast colossus could be so effortlessly
hidden away?
© 2003, Simon Patton
A Certain Tall Wall
cut off by a wallone portion of a great ship appears up above the wall
we are forced to welcome this suggestion:
the bit hidden by the wall
is the sea
we are all of us—endlessly, tedious—
imagining it
this wall that we’re imagining
gets higher and higher
longer and longer
it makes us all feel much more dismayed
than real sea would do
fragile sea—o
before I’d looked on you, the thought that intrigued me:
Why was it such a vast colossus could be so effortlessly
hidden away?
© 2003, Simon Patton
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