The Old Camphor Tree In My Memory
Author: Runping Chen
The desk sends forth its particular fragrance
That gladden people’s hearts.
That is the sweet-smelling of the old camphor bodies
And into the impression of my childhood immerses.
The shade extended my fellow villagers’ strolling;
Countless summer nights embraced people’s joyful cooling.
The huge and tabescent trunk held up
The wind and frost for generations’ living.
The refreshing breeze was kissing the head of the tree.
Kindly pulled the old camphor closer
Some strands of cooking smokes
Vaguer and vaguer.
The production teams’ whistles were resounding over the village,
And grownups shouldered the sun and moon
Hurrying to the hills and fields
While the old camphor collected the children’s imaginative yields.
--In its chest
The childhoods would not be lonely and flurried
Counting from the stitches of leaves
Thousands and thousands of suns.
Many rivers of time were flowing around;
With no sense of time, the sadness I’ve known.
Since I was away, many shifts of the sunrise and sunset
I came back home and found the old camphor fallen on the ground.
It’s lying on the ground with no voice and sound,
Being dying and breathing
The merely last fragrance of its life
In front of the horrible carpenters who circled around.
The carpenters held their stainless saws
Ignoring the old camphor’s itches and aches.
On its shoulder was an owl
With the mouth open, and family ruined after all.
Prizing up the mouth for no use of vomiting sadness,
The birds sang no songs any more in the sky
Because they could hardly find back
Houses and household articles among the green leaves.
Children carried in both hands the remains of the old camphor’s bones,
Hating to pile them in the firewood house.
When the setting sun was sliding down the west hill ridges,
I walked back and forth around the old camphor tree.
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