THE NIGHT WATCHES THE FLOCK FOR ME by Kou Junjian
THE NIGHT WATCHES THE FLOCK FOR ME
by Kou Junjian
The night watches the flock for me.
He watches it anonymously, faithfully like a sheep dog,
quietly watches it from above the vast sky,
from deep in the mountains, under the rugged twilight.
Dark night keeps the flock, but memories are mine to guard.
My morin khuur breaks free from the wind’s tug, dashing off
towards the end of time.
Hills, in an endless range, stretch over stillness.
Day and Night watch over the streams and over us,
and over the life-sustaining snow.
To the night, darkness is the nature of the sky;
moonlight, butter lamps, inner lines are all illusionary,
the grassland’s offerings to the flock.
The flock, it is kept safe by the night,
done without my consent.
In a similar fashion, the morning dew becomes a river
to tell stories to the lonely and magnificent meadow.
Every oxbow lake stays quiet, each offers a path
to the dark night.
The night watches over the flock for me,
in return I don the sky its turquoise blue.
The numerous stars enable me to talk to the untouchable sky.
They enter my eyes,
allowing me a peek into the secrets of the universe.
About the poet:
Kou Junjian graduated from the Chinese Department of Xinjiang Normal University in June 2001. He began publishing literary works in 1995, which have appeared in a number of newspapers and periodicals including Poetry Periodical, People's Daily, West, Green Breeze, Wenyi, Minzu Huabao, Xinjiang Daily, Xinjiang Economic Daily and Yili River. He has planned and written scripts for a series of major achievement exhibitions and TV documentaries in Bazhou. His journalistic works have been published in hundreds of media outlets. He also wrote and served as chief editor of the large-scale stamp album Mysterious Loulan · Splendid Bazhou, which won the First Prize in the 3rd Xinjiang External Publicity Works Competition. His poems have been selected for anthologies such as The Earth Turns West and In That Distant Land. In 2011, he was included in the List of Xinjiang New Generation Writers. He currently lives in Korla City.