"Song" by Taya Min Wai

Illustration for Taya Min Wai's poem "Song," by Kenneth Wong

Taya Min Wai (1966-2007), a Burmese poet and novelist, was also known as Shwe Phone Lu or Chit Nyi Nyi. He was a member of the inner circle of dissident students responsible for the 1988 uprising. For his role, he was imprisoned from 1990 to 1994. At Min Wai's funeral in 2007, prominent Burmese student leader Min Ko Naing read a poem, "The Groom of Fallen Stars," as a tribute to his friend.

In an anthology published to commemorate Min Wai's passing (Remembering Taya Min Wai, August 2009, Moemaka Multimedia), one of his cellmates recalled how Taya Min Wai composed poems by memorizing his lines in prison because he was forbidden to possess pencils and papers. It's believed that one of his acclaimed novels, The Moon of the Age of Flowers (Pan Khit Ka La Min), was conceived and written behind bars.

The illustration above was drawn digitally in Autodesk SketchBook Pro for iPad.

Song
by Tar Ya Min Wai
(Translated by Kenneth Wong)

The demons fainted from my flowers’ fragrance
On the night she missed me.

The constellations in my heaven blushed
On the night she whispered my name.

Blocks of lead dropped into my ocean
And I lit a lighthouse in my heart
On the night I burned at both ends,
And kept it lit up all alone.

Startled villains dropped their swords
On the night she gazed into the distance.

The stones on the road were perfumed
On the night she loved me.

I shot myself with thunderbolts,
I was engulfed in ghostly flames,
On the night I burned at both ends,
And kept it lit up all alone.