"Silent
Love" ("Người Yêu Chưa Ngỏ"), the fifth track in
the special edition of CD Beyond the Realm of Time, was originally
two poems. The Saint Poet has merged them into one when She sings
the song. As a result, the implication is expanded and has become
more meaningful. The first two stanzas are from "Silent Love"
in the poetry collection The Lost Memories, while the third is
from "Untitled 2" (Không Đề 2) in Traces of Previous
Lives, which is also featured in CD Traces of Previous Lives III
as track 14 with Master's melodious recital. Interested readers
and listeners may compare the different singing styles of the
Poet in different periods. The English version opresented here
was translated from the Aulacese version of Master's singing.
The graceful elegance of the original lyrics in vocabulary and
rhyme is not easy to be preserved and conveyed in translation.
Humor and Transcendence in Master's Poetry
When
one has to do something that must be done but is unwilling to
get so wound up in it that one may lose the ability to extricate
oneself from the situation, one has to transcend. Yet no one could
ever self-elevate all on his or her own, without a model. Fortunately,
there is such a model in "Silent love."
In
the first stanza, an innocent young woman's attraction to another
person develops into an attachment. The naiveté of youth
has turned into sorrow.
In the second stanza, her love letter is stained with tears. But
the letter she wrote in summer has not been mailed, even by now
in wintertime. The sigh over the loss of the innocence also indicates
a consciousness that has learned through experience and is therefore
more mature and transcending.
In
the third stanza, as it turns out, Heaven, the higher level, emerges.
From this height, the mood has become more forgiving, relaxed,
and humorous. Humor has dissolved the attachment, and the intention
to go back home to Heaven is revived. This is a greater transcendence.
In
the history of literature, there are renowned works that describe
love from the viewpoint of two different levels: Heaven and Earth.
Dream in a Red Chamber, the foremost literary achievement
in Chinese classical literature, is an example. Jia Baoyu is originally
a stone that is spiritually awakened along the bank of the river
of spirituality in Heaven and Lin Daiyu is an immortal herb called
purple pearl on the same bank. The stone has been very kind to
water the herb regularly with water from the river and, grateful
to the stone, the herb has decided to descend into human world
to repay this favor with her tears. Thus a love story filled with
tears comes to pass in the human world. The imagination of the
immortal stone and herb is truly beautiful and has established
their faithful love on a celestial foundation that cannot be destroyed.
But there is not much difference between the two levels: the love
on the bank of the heavenly river and that in the Garden of Spectacular
Views are just two parallel worlds. No enlightenment is forthcoming.
Even when the stone becomes a monk in human world, there is no
real transcendence.
When
a spiritual being of the highest order descends into the human
world, existing in human flesh, She may also go through what human
beings would have to. But She is very different from mortals:
She is the model.
~ Yiming, New Jersey,
USA
Behind the Curtain