In a Pomegranate, I See the Motherland

In a pomegranate, I see the motherland

Plump colossal fruit of heaven and earth

Within itself holding progeny that stick together

Naked skin protecting its crystal clear heart

Children joining hands in multitudes

At a branch's end its smile is sweet and tart

In the season of fruitfulness   Ah birth couch for a mother-to-be

I wish to remember each window of October

To stroke the pomegranate's yellow inner membrane

Is to stroke the motherland's fresh new growth

I see the provinces neighboring each other

The sunrise-facing east side of one   is next to another's sunset-facing side

I see highland daughters, wearing garlands in their hair

Each oval face is ruddy, and young women standing tall

Are wearing skirts of pomegranate hue

Their pomegranate lips are juicy red

I also see that the pomegranate has split open

Some brothers are dining on wind, sleeping in the dew

Ah my dearly beloved brothers

Their indomitable backs, knobby and earth-colored

Bearing the hardships of crevice-riddled soil

Each vein standing out is a mark of hard toil

I find that their hands repay careful scrutiny

I find that their creases are silent cries

Across the land painful shouts stimulate leaves

To grow madly in the spring wind

Trunk and branches rise to the occasion

To put forth interlocking limbs and twigs

And proffer flower clusters, with vaulting elan

Made up of florets that are light and yet seem heavy

Like flames that aren't snuffed out by pouring rain

Floral wind chimes to toss the dawn awake

Before the lion-maned sun grew old

This fruit commenced its branch-tip dance

Within a dream’s splendor I stand and gaze

At each sky-aiming pomegranate tree

Each tree like a citizen with bowed waist

Holding forth a red heart, wrested from within itself

On its well-proportioned frame hang a tree-full of citizens

Written in 2006

Translated by Denis Mair