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TIBET AT A TURNING POINT: THE SPRING UPRISING AND CHINA’S NEW CRACKDOWN
This preceding poem, like the one below, ‘Witness to a Turn of Fate,’ referencing the
March 1959 Uprising, is reproduced with the kind permission of A.E. Clark, translator
of the first collection of Woeser’s poems to be published in English, Tibet’s True Heart.
The collection of poetry is published by Ragged Banner Press and available now online
at www.RaggedBanner.com. In his notes to ‘December’, A.E. Clark writes that the political
sensitivity of the topic of this poem, the controversy over the imposition of a
Chinese Panchen Lama by the government and the abduction of the boy recognized
by the Dalai Lama as the true Panchen, compelled the poet to use veiled language.
The translator suggests that “the two sparrows” who fall from their branches in the
woods represent the two boys whose lives have been ruined in different ways; the
‘he’ of the third line is the Chinese government; the ‘furious girl” is Woeser herself.
“That one” whose blood pours out is “the man of deep red hue”, Chadrel Rinpoche,
leader of the search party to find the Panchen Lama, Gendun Choekyi Nyima. Chadrel
Rinpoche is still under virtual house arrest in Tibet. A.E. Clark also writes: “The pair
of praying hands chopped off, which apparently dropped an intangible rosary, may
also refer to the sufferings of Chadrel Rinpoche. Or it could refer to the interrupted lineage
of the Panchen Lama and the challenge of maintaining the living traditions of Tibetan
Buddhism when the leaders and institutions that sustain them are destroyed.”
WITNESS TO A TURN OF FATE
A poem by Woeser
Days and years, long time passing.
We seem to have reached the void. It is empty, hollow.
A turn of fate rolls on, it seems,
But there is fear and sorrow
Like a bird startled, or a rat retreating. Black clouds swirl.
Much happened that year. It’s faded from memory,
Gone with the wind, gone with the wind.
Life must go on. How can your land of snow
Survive a frigid winter?
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