Daily Poem: Madrid ~ Pai Wei
Madrid
~ Pai Wei
Translated from Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth and Chung Ling
From “The Penguin Book of Women Poets”: Pai Wei, ‘white fern’, is the pseudonym of Huang Su-ju, who was born in Hunan and as a young girl ran away to avoid an arranged marriage. In the twenties she went to Japan to study and took the poet Yang Sao as her lover. She became a Communist and now lives in the People’s Republic.
She wrote this poem during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Given the current situation with Catalonia, I worry that this poem may become relevant again. I hope with all my being that it does not.
Madrid—
Blood drops, drip, drop, from the child in your arms.
And Spain is kept awake all night
By this novel apparition
That frightens the old-time militants.
You are the splendid future,
The ruthless clean sweep,
That pulls the puppet,
Dragging his black shadow,
Marching towards you from Morocco.
You are a woman in childbirth,
Threatened with puerperal disasters,
Who struggles to protect your newborn baby.
I am afraid that your labor
Will have bled you past saving—
Your labour which has exceeded that of St Mary.
