The following poem by Zargana is published in the International PEN anthology of writings from prison.
Oblivion
At night the moonbeams snap.
The stars are suffocated.
That maligned, unhappy barn owl
screeches out its grief.
The old train on the tracks
hurtles to its destruction
wheezing out its last breath.
And I? I send my thoughts beyond these walls
day in, day out, from dawn to night
(from dawn to night, day in day out)
I dream the endless daydream,
dream the endless journey
through the night, fretting,
champing at the bit:
the one I call for does not come,
the one I wait for never appears
Ah, if I could only stop the
thinking, seeing, hearing, dreaming….
I wouldn’t feel a thing.
Zargana, Burma, 1988
The translator has asked to remain anonymous.
From This Prison Where I Live published by Cassell, 1996, ed. Siobhan Dowd.
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