Leaving For a Distant Place
Author: Runping Chen
In his mother’s eyes,
The child is dragging her coat brim;
On father’s broad shoulders,
I am still weak and young.
Today, the swallows are trying a fly
While I am also about to leave home.
At the entrance to the village, the bus is moving ahead.
Mother’s tears shedding like threads fastened the child’ heels.
Exhorting me a hundred thousand times
How could she exert a full heart of worries on and on,
However far and near, just as beyond the horizon.
The wrinkles on father’s forehead
Were crowded with drastic heartbeats
And he saw the child stepping forward
The weak and puny footprints.
Perhaps walking on and on alone,
The child might understand the hardships that life trecked on.
Birds will fly high and deer will run fast.
This long journey is on my life course the first.
To rouse the young wings
So as to be firm and proud
And to say farewell to many years of shield
While I’m trying to fly, to a distant sky.
Mother, wipe off thy tears, please.
And tell father to wait for the swallows’ return;
Don’t walk back and forth at the entrance of the village
Where the cypress tree is in the direction of my homing passage.
I will stretch my wings that have gradually become browny
And perch on your life eventually.
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