*
my father and I

were standing at the glass book shelf

looking down

at a row of mao's works translated in albanian

I said to dad

why did you learn english

not albanian?

should I?

no, he said, no, not albanian

you don't learn that language

I forgot what else he said

as part of his explanation

'cause that must be more than thirty years ago

during the cultural revolution

when the bookshops throughout china

had nothing but mao's works
 

*

 
xia guoqiang a friend

from middle school

told me after seeing an albanian film

how dirty the tricks were that the enemy had played

I saw the film

and never saw it the way he saw it

all I could remember was the song

and the music

albanian music

that was greater than anything I had ever heard

although I had not heard much
 

*

 
the guitar the albanians played in the film

the mountain eagle flag

and the mountainous country

such a tiny country in the world

such a great friend with china

in those days
I remember all that

and more

when I watched nato bombing

and kosova albanians

on t.v.

today
 
7/5/99
 

 

(p.s – my wife said to me over dinner

a number of days

after I had finished the poem

that

she recalled the titles of those two albanian films

I said i could not remember

and that

she said she could not remember

when asked

one called The Trauma

and the other, Rather Die than Surrender and she added

that

she admired the nurse in the film

a lot

for the proud way

she held herself

and that

she had seen the film

many many times

'cause there wasn't much else

then)