After Your Demise (Thin Thay Thwar Thaw)

After Your Demise
(Thin Thay Thwar Thaw)

Oh, This is a world of humans
Who would grow, age and die
It's the law of Karma and Man
Every one has to live and resign!

So, my friend, you have to die one day
You don't have anything to say
But, after your death, your native land
That fed you should be left in better hand.

Your mother tongue and literature
Should be improved greater and better.

Where you pay homage and share merit
That pretty pagoda should be lit
Its golden hue and honour
Shine shimmering in splendour!

Zaw Gyi in O'way Magazine, December 1935
Translation Dr Maung Maung Nyo
30.08.2007

Still wearing flower in defiance

Still wearing flower in defiance
(pan pan hleb pe)

At the foot of brown fawny swampland
Hyacinth rises and falls with wave bends.

Falling is not an easy thing
A fallen coco branch floats downstream
Screaming and slamming the tiny hyacinth
To collide her sides to sink.

Collision is also not easy
Next, a tide covers her completely
Drowning our beauty, lady hyacinth blue
Rise of wave at body's length floating her anew.

Floating back is also not easier
From a little streamlet ducks appear
Flocks of ducks near hundreds
Hyacinth numbers just one head.

Braving kicks and brawls
Flying hyacinth grit and growls
Wearing a flower defying and daring all.

ZawGyi (Rangoon University O'way Magazine, 1960)
Translation by Dr. Maung Maung Nyo (18.3.2007)

This is my way.