QIGE TUOMA
TWO POEMS
translated by Zuo Fei and Jennifer Fossenbell
Dante’s Request
All my efforts of last night were made to
force today to rise from a deeper layer of the earth
Abruptly gone is what has lifted us to such heights
and I sway ever more at the thought of
all that is inadequate to support me yet does
The clouds proudly spread the sunset glow
The streetlamps are planted in the orderly darkness
God alone owns the combined pleasure
of every full thing. Still, the earth
bursts open at last in reckless honesty
As usual, the beloved arrive unexpectedly and gratefully
leave, but not far off, just enough to make
the world vaster and more desolate, more like
our world. Maybe all our lives we’ll be
adjusting our reciprocal distance from the fire, having likely
pursued with open hearts a light that is hardly useful
even to ourselves. And I, the firefighter, will always love
this fire that hesitates, yet is burning everywhere
in the world. Sometimes I forget
it is only in memories that sweetness and bitterness
can for a moment be separated. The chaos I can’t enjoy
turns out to be a picture of the world, every piece in its place
I’ve broken loose from the fire in whose depths
you were trapped. I am after all a cultivated
red ember; inevitably my lighter self will
glint with impatience, as the great dead, who are upon us, do
Now unknowingly the seagulls sail across the swift lake
as though they do not have to grab onto something
to live, as though in the end, anyone could
acquire such a lake by calming themselves
by reflecting and not pushing. I will listen with all the waters
will conceal myself and create the first vacillations until
the fine salt is uncovered, consolidating the power of the waves
Whatever the burden, what rests on our shoulders
should equal what a butterfly could carry. The secret
of conveyance is this: when the far-off breeze
reaches you, it must still hold the form of waving wheat
Wish the sunlight wasn’t so strong, for it’s better
to hide well than to reveal all. After the heavy rain
silence is still an exaggerated existence
and I still want to be human in greater concentration
or in a dimmed symmetry, a pear
that gravity doesn’t detect, together with the departed
who are becoming sweeter. There, the universe is
persuaded to go on, all things linked to the whole
and shaking, and you know all of it just by catching one piece
Maybe the fear of being loved by something higher than yourself
can only be resolved by loving. With
great urgency, my bleak granary must confront
the devastating harvest, which collects the truth in its entirety
Also this: I need that last reserve of strength to grasp
a Dante of my own, for an inferno-esque request,
unstoppable, has risen from the glorious depths:
grant me a Beatrice most passionate and stern
The Possibility of Nails
Sometimes I desire so little, as innocent
as a Tibetan wood bridge, living securely
in a universe that needs no nails, or only in the
few planks’ smallest, stubborn thoughts about the bridge
In this way, I trust all the other common planks
simply for the pure pleasure of mechanics
The more weight we bear, the better we understand
one another, and the more we resemble the bridge,
not just the sum total of wood. If nobody crosses the bridge
we become ordinary timber, which gives
the other side of the river a great rest. So long as there is
some indispensable tiny erosion within the wood—which is to say
so long as there is God, the bridge can have some sign of life
Our God, his work finished, has been reduced to
inspector, whose day job is to knock here
and tap there, ensuring that all the future links
will stand to endure pain, of which I have grown weary
The bridge finds itself now in mid-air
with the ready-made torrents below
yet it has no more interest in leading anywhere
not even when someone finally comes to cross
So let the flow flow, who cares
One day the bridge will have to collapse
and don’t be surprised if no new scars
are left on its planks, for they were once
filled with nails, or the possibility of nails
There’s so little I don’t desire: now
it’s all the wood and all the nails I want
As to what the eternal is, it’s like the wood
that dares to refute the fire, in the same way we make love—
the more willing we are to shake it off, the more faithful to
the fire. Just because we’re wood
filled with nail holes doesn’t mean
we won’t be permitted into the rigorous final blaze
author’s note
Poetry, to me, is an important phone call made to god. It's taking small inhalations from something none of us have seen: eternity. As in the moments spent in love, while writing poems, I can revel in an existence of being without shape, without name. I believe that the best poems don't only somehow fill up our ears, but also empties them out, allowing us to continue that careful, selfless way of listening.
"Seven Thomases"—the poet's unusual pen name strikes me like a reference to some obscure scripture. For all I know, it does. And in that way, the name serves as an apt supertitle to these two poems, which unfold line by line like metaphysical parables, carefully crafted equations that end in a final balance of intellect, feeling, and morality. As tiny proofs, each stanza has to be unravelled carefully, or their logic falls apart; that tender process is what presented the greatest challenge and pleasure in working with these poems. The delicacy of syntax demanded magnification and precision within each phrase, and even then, everything was always on the brink of deterioration: burning down, filled with holes, eroding. But the reader is rewarded with the touch of natural elements: purifying fire, ready-made torrents, a placid lake. Qige Tuoma's spiritual universe, built of words, is one where nature constructs beautiful and sometimes terrifying structures—vacillations, cultivated embers, the heavy dead, the pear that gravity doesn't detect, a burdened butterfly, an inferno-esque blaze. In these poems we are aware equally of pain and glory, mortification and magnificence, and the wooden weight of mystery. Here, God knocks, as if testing the material.