Burning Wheat

I am that comet you all have cursed,



in the dark void drifting aimless and unsettled.



Love me like an avenger's lost



last chance at revenge.



 



I am that person whose shadow was carved on the tree,



and from that day on taken for dead.



Love me like a hallucination



in a crazed killer's fevered brain.



 



I am that wheat that Heaven too has singed with fire,



that has shivered even from the dog days' sunlight.



Love me like a masochist.



As you cherish reason when the unreasonable surround you.



 



I am that wolf whose cold bright bones the witch doctor holds in her hand.



To soil, to air, to flame, to water I will scatter like a spell.



Love me like miracles not seen even when sun and moon align



in the sixth degree under the sign of the ram.



 



August 25, 2004, Ürümchi



 



 



*Translated from the Uyghur by Joshua L. Freeman. See another of his translations *



*in the Advocate [here](../../../../article/563/old-era-or-wolf-girl/).  *



* *