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Ma Yongbo: Father’s Little Boat (English and Chinese)
He lies all night in the darkness of God,
frail as winter’s breath.
She sits all night within his darkness,
like a winter branch trembling
from the effort of stillness.
She sits beside him all night,
watching the Father’s darkness,
listening to the careful breath of the dark,
listening to the broken winds of another world.
They are father and daughter.
They have both grown smaller,
clutching the boat’s edge with stiffened fingers.
All night they drift
in a narrow gondola.
He flows downstream,
drifting toward the siphoned heavens.
She rows against the current,
seeking the Holy Grail
in the labyrinth of bones.
A quiet child.
An angry mother.
They glide all night
across a vast pane of blackened glass.
~~~
父亲的小船
他整夜躺在神的黑暗中
衰弱如同冬天的呼吸
她整夜坐在他的黑暗中
如同因坚持静止
而颤栗的冬天的树枝
她整夜坐在他身边
看着父的黑暗
倾听黑暗小心的呼吸
倾听另一个世界断续的风声
他们是父亲和女儿
他们都变小了
用僵硬的手指紧抓住船舷
他们整夜飘流
在一条窄小的贡戈拉上
他顺流而下
飘向虹吸的天堂
她逆流而上
要去骨头的迷宫中寻找圣杯
一个安静的孩子
一个愤怒的母亲
他们整夜滑行
一块被涂黑的巨大的玻璃
~~~~
Ma Yongbo (a.k.a. Yongbo Ma) is a professor of American literature at Nanjing University Of Science And Technology
Copyright 2025 Ma Yongbo
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Thanks to Michael for making this poem, which cannot be published publicly in Chinese, exist in English. I also want to thank all the poet friends who left messages. I have read each of your kind and understanding words one by one. When my father-in-law was critically ill, my courses at a university in Nanjing had not yet ended, and it was difficult for me to ask for leave to return to Harbin to accompany him and my wife, which has always been a regret for me. There are many helplessness in life. I am essentially a writer of elegies. It seems that I am always mourning something, including myself. Perhaps beautiful things are indeed disappearing rapidly. Thanks for all again!
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Thank you for this revelation about you and your work, Yongbo. You are a treasure.
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I love this gorgeous poem, with its heart of sorrow.
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Thanks, Lisa. I do too. The two sad people, father and daughter, hanging onto each other…
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Oh how I love this poem, the fragility of it, the eternity of it, the changing of perspective, the intimacy, the images. Wow.
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Oh, such this poem makes such gorgeous music! I admire every line.
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Thanks, Meg. It is beautiful, isn’t it?
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This beautiful poem reminds me of Eliot’s “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood” — and this is so true for me in “Father’s Little Boat” — how it communicates, how I understand it and feel it. I meant it when I wrote “beautiful”. The poem is full of beauties and one reacts to this on an immediate emotional level, and then only to a more intellectual perception.
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I agree, Laure-Anne. The poem communicates more than what it says.
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thank you, your saying is true!
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Ma Yongbo astonishes in this poem:
Thinking inside and outside the gondola, the mysterious role of the mother, the beauty of the translation, the joy and stress of being. All within the reality of bones, and the human rowing. And so much more.
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Thanks, Jim. I love this poem for it’s mystery and depth.
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Floating. Wondering wishing I had the power to crawl inside the original language as I am thankful for translation.
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Some poems translate better than others. I feel this one works well as a poem in English.
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Mysterious, especially the mother’s anger. I love the personification of the boat.
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I love this poem in English. I understand it is even more beautiful in Mandarin.
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Read, re-read, re-read…floating downstream, she, rowing against the current; watching, listening…What I’m hearing is beyond my knowing. Amazing poem.
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Yes, it is. Amazing.
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Thank you for this space of beauty and heart-song in the morning.
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Heart-song. Yes it is.
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