Comparing to writing Chinese Poem, writing English Poem is very difficult for me!
For my profession is not English Literature, nor my major study in the research department relates to Language. Indeed, I learnt hardly how to write effectively in English during my final stage of PhD study. Perhaps my interest in English writing, not the general grammar learning, is aroused from that time. Although I am not expertise in English, I still enjoy reading poem, no matter the Chinese or the English one. After reading a few pages of the last incomplete short English novel, The Young Marshal (recently published), written by the now-famous deceased Chinese writer Eileen Chang, I was stirred up an intense but unexplainable feeling toward her. You may say that I am quite sympathetic to her writing tones, styles, as well as her life. If I am asked to describe what kind of feeling it is, perhaps, a word may immediately flash in my mind -- "legendary" or "legend". To me, not only it is Eileen's writing a legend for both of her and her readers, but also it is of her own life, spanning from the prosperous decadence of younger years in Shanghai to the desolate seclusion of later years in US, an enigmatic "legend". As such, I have a strong impulse to write something using the theme of "legend". So I attempt to compose a poem, albeit simple and raw, entitled "A Love Legend".
Essay
Poem I:
A Love Legend
They said my love for you is a legend.
I said it is you to make the legend!
But you choose to reside in your legend,
Alone I leave the reminiscence in my legend.
If we're asked what is a legend,
Could our love legend is the only legend?
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It is a pity that this rather raw, somewhat a beginner's exercise is not rhymed. So I try to write another one constructed with rhymes.
Poem II:
Memory Ebbs and Flows
Memory, silently ebbs and flows,
As the evening breeze blows;
May the merry-sorry past go?
Still the old song floats;
Who gaze upon the stream?
within a moment of sigh and dream;
And fish for the hopes as they pass,
Within the limpid watery glass!
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These two poems is my first attempt of writing English poem. To me, it is not that important whether these two poem are qualified as poetry or not, or it is beautiful or not. The mostly important is that they will remain in my reminiscence throughout my life, just like a seed of a flower sleeping in the soil, and waiting for its growth, as time goes by.
Finale
David Leung (theorydavid)
2014-09-26 (published)
