My Friend in the Firmament of World Literature

My friend dwells beneath the firmament of world literature,

Weaving the warp and weft with the starlight of his mother tongue —

When his nib glides across the manuscript page,

Homer’s lyre thrums between the lines;

The magical rain of Márquez drizzles into his wine cup brimming with metaphors;

And Borges’ labyrinth has long cleared a path

Through his verses, a secret trail leading to the universal emotions of humanity.

He stands on the ruins of the Tower of Babel, chanting softly,

Winds of every tongue come to trace the birthmark in his lines.

Those images smoothed by the sands of time —

They are the seeds he sows across the world.

They take root in the unwritten sonnets of Shakespeare;

They sprout in the snow-cloaked realm where Kawabata Yasunari lay awake.

At last, they grow into a colossal tree of literature, linking all civilizations.

If you ask why his name is not carved in the annals of literary history?

Look — the flocks of pigeons brushing the floating ribbons of Dunhuang’s apsaras

Are bearing his unpublished poems to every continent on earth.

Beneath every inch of soil moistened by his verses,

Lies a literary totem belonging to this era.

And he remains the watchman standing under the totem pole,

Grinding ink with moonlight, setting his verses to the rhythm of his heartbeat.

In the galaxy of world literature,

He burns alone, a constellation that never fades.