Farewell
(a Chinese officer departs for war)
This only do I leave with pain,
this pink and white and slant-eyed thing
which is my soul,
my heart,
my love,
my morning breath,
and singing Death
will not make whole
that part whereof
I halve myself . . . . betraying Spring.
You only do I leave with pain,
O pink and white and slant-eyed thing!
Evelyn Coffey
This poem was so curious to us, so foreign to Evelyn's experience, so we asked her about it. She said that she had seen a photo in the newspaper, a photo of this man going off to war, and it moved her to write this. How remarkable that she would inhabit the soul of this man from another country, another civilization, another race, and write in his voice!
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