TZEMIN ITION TSAI

 

Silently Old

 

I woke up early

Unable to fall back asleep, I lay there

Facing the sky, I wonder

Is it hard to remember?

A piece of clothing with just two sleeves?

The pot waits

As do restless souls

Cups stare blankly

Only the fire remains

Watching the boiling water

Silence

Like a teapot gazing dumbly at an empty cup...

Flickers of flame, yet the night fades away

With the sound of firecrackers,

dragons still dance in the streets

In the year that starts now

Scriptures are unfurled

My entire being drifts in panic, voices enter my ears

The Muyu drum taps on my floating heart

Facing the eyes of Buddha statues 

 

An Afternoon

 

A gusty afternoon, the breeze sings

The scent after rain, sweetens the air

I gaze towards the heavens, the sun's eye soaring high

Until palm trees slant, and clouds return to the window

Outside, thunder roars

Echoing through a lazy nap,

a moment to listen to the sea's tales

The radio hums, playing old melodies

Old and sweet, touching a heart that aches for company

 

The balcony holds a lingering cloud

Listlessly, it sits cross-legged on the ground

Behind the house, the beach stands solitary

Gazing afar,

waves and a coffee cup offering remnants of foam

Eyes fixed, unblinking

A half-open drawer, a sudden surge of impulse

Old photographs, letters bound and folded

Waiting for someone, a poem,

or perhaps a poem written long ago by that very same someone

 

Reading the waves' whispers on the coastal streets

Over and over

As some mumbled words begin to flow slowly

I hear the doorbell ring, swiftly wiping away my tears.

 

Tears Of The Thorny Bamboo In Firelight ~The Sakizaya Fire God Festival

 

Under the veil of night, curling smoke rises delicately

On the soybean stalks,

a few sparrows perch free,

as the spring breeze comes and goes

The old well,

encircled by clusters of bitter shoots’ green cradles

Covering the pebbled slopes,

is it not the twisted roots of that nest of thorny bamboo?

On the edges,

grazing happens, beneath the bamboo shade,

bamboo shoots, insects, and cicadas sway

Firelight beckons,

heralding the message of the Fire God Festival

With ginger wine as the key,

it unlocks the hidden and the rebirth of the Sakizaya

 

By the seaside, the Nararakan hills

Galiwan, where warriors fell on the battlefield

The Southern Alliance,

the five great lineages that appear only in dreams

A century of historical void,

how should the hidden tendrils conduct themselves?

What truly are the Sakizaya?

The meaning of existence,

a testimony sought tirelessly

In the hope that in death,

a smile can be carried back

into the embrace of the ancestral spirits

 

Perishing by fire, reborn through fire

Earth’s gold binds blood, deep indigo,

ink green merging into brown and white mountains

Ancestral history, with throats singing sorrows unrestrained

Pasavaan, ralud, sadinsing,

kasinawan, singings of bountiful harvests across the seasons

Closer to the shells,

shadows of stones delve into the ocean like draped garments

Nararakan, beneath women's headdresses,

green bead strings listen

To white tears trailing down

On the Sabobodan Mountain,

the triangular stones bear the legend of Chilai.

 

TZEMIN ITION TSAI

 

Prof. Dr. TZEMIN ITION TSAI(蔡澤民博士) was born in Taiwan(China). He holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and two Masters of Science in Applied Mathematics and Chemical Engineering. He is a scholar with a wide range of expertise while maintaining a common and positive interest in science, engineering, and literature. Dr. Tsai is not just an accomplished poet, he is an essayist, novelist, columnist, editor, translator, academic, engineer, mathematician, and so many other things. His literary creation specializes and expertise in the description of nature, the anatomy of emotion and humanity, life writing, graphic writing, cross-domain writing, and so on. Dr. Tsai has carried out a number of educational research with the development of teaching materials in his country. He has won many national literary awards. His literary works have been anthologized and published in books, journals, and newspapers in more than 40 countries and translated into more than 20 languages. Tsai is a professor at Asia University(Taiwan), and editor of Reading, Writing and Teaching academic text. He also writes the long-term columns for Chinese Language Monthly in Taiwan. There are many famous poets from different countries in the world through his Chinese translations and introductions were able to be recognized by the people of China.