Snow Falling on the Forbidden City

 

Ma Di’er [China]

 

 

When the second snow falls,

I begin to visit the Forbidden City.

The light remains faint.

I am just a tourist,

Looking around and closely following the guide.

I take a few photos hastily as a memento

So my colleagues could know

I have also visited the emperor’s office.

But that guide, a young lady,

Keeps praising the emperor’s dragon throne,

Making me somehow fed up with

The entire Forbidden City.

 

The moat outside the city has already frozen;

It is difficult to measure the thickness of ice.

All the fishes must be hibernating.

Several boys and girls

Put on ice skates in bright colors,

Like butterflies flying back and forth on the ice.

The Forbidden City in the snow

Is swaying in their eyes.

 

 

The Sketch of the National Bank

 

Yesterday, the wind was piercingly cold.

I wore shabby clothes

Marching to the National Bank

With a sack of Renminbi on my back.

The female manager in the lobby who thought

I was a rubbish collector from the countryside

Immediately called a male security guard

To drive me out.

 

Today, the sun is like a ball of fire.

I am in a suit and leather shoes

Stepping into the national bank.

The female manager in the lobby who thinks

I am a tycoon back to the hometown

Immediately greets me with a smile,

And takes me to the VIP window.

Actually, in my pocket

There is not a single coin.

I enter the national bank

For a loan.

(Translated by Wu Minyu\)

 

 

About the author:

Ma Di’er, an outstanding contemporary Chinese poet, birthnamed Ma Yong and pennamed Gu Hanshan, was born in 1966 in Fuqing City of Fujian Province. He majored in international finance and economic management and now is a financial worker. He is now a CPPCC member of Fuqing City and chairman of Fuqing Writers’ Association. He won the art award at the first Fuqing Art Awards, the first prize in the article contest of “National Social Documentary Problem Novels by High-school Students” sponsored by the Fujian Youth Journal. The new star award in the “Second China Star New Poetry sponsored by Xingxing Poetry Journal, the best poet in the 21st century sponsored by the American International Poet Association. He published poetry collection Rain Fall at Qingming Festival, A Scholar in the Snow and a collection of essays On the Mountain: Hidden or Bright, etc.