There are very few writers in my life. My mother and father read, but do not write. I have no siblings who enjoy it. In my kaleidoscopic family scattered across continents, we do not share even the one thing in common.

But I do have someone. He is from the past, from before I was born. My great-grandfather was a poet. He passed away when he was 35 from tuberculosis.

Many of his poems were about life and death, and I recall my grandfather saying of his works, he would surely die sooner after reading them. “He only talks about birds. He only talks about dying, and looking up at the sky and the birds and wondering when he’s going to join them.”

It is beautiful, though, to read of beauty, whether of death or life. And it is nice to read something old and foreign, amidst the ever-variant worlds of today.

His originals: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11mo7n8I6LYgr-GHwCK3AkKm_VxehjdZ5/view?usp=share_link

My translations: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hbOzXgX6TX7xydxn4Ozt9aLQJU-H5agI/view?usp=sharing