Leisure & Culture #56
Seasons
Fong Tai Chor
Written by: Fong Tai Chor
Translated by: Melissa Leung
They say dragonflies always hover over places that are cool for there is water, but also for the wind. Pick up bamboo-copters and turn them into drifting dragonflies by simply rubbing one in between your hands. It’s just refreshing to see the copters spinning high as if the heat is carried away.
Seasons
(written by Fong Tai Chor; translated by Melissa Leung)
A thousand times of trial and error,
Of fly and falter,
For the sake of error - over and over.
The season of a thousand fluttering bamboo dragonflies,
When the wind flies high,
Without a care in the world,
When no one cares where the wind blows.
A dark night, a lonely tune.
So many names,
So many people
Searching for you, blindfolded.
Those who are trying
Know not their comrades.
Truth is always exhausting,
What if one can just let go,
And fly?
Let the wind caress your warmth,
In the season
Of a thousand fluttering bamboo dragonflies.
To those dreaming at night:
Fly, fly high
Flutter away as bamboo dragonflies.
Dream of this city as you fly high,
Over and over.
Make errors that go beyond errors,
over and over.
The poet Fang Tai Chor combines the images of dragonflies and bamboo-copters with the action of playing and trying. This gesture, with fingertips pointing up, has the similar meaning of the ancient ritual, wishes to carry away the heat from the city.
