"Traveling by Train" by Tin Moe

"Traveling by Train," illustration by Kenneth Wong

One evening in September 2003, Burmese poet Tin Moe came to Fremont, California, to deliver a literary talk. He waddled up to the podium, carrying his generous spirit and girth. To accommodate the non-Burmese in the audience, the organizers had recruited an interpreter. That was a cruel thing to do, I thought. There was no way any interpreter could faithfully render in English the spontaneous rhymes and intricate metaphors that punctuated Tin Moe's Burmese. All the poor man could do was to make a heroic attempt to summarize what Tin Moe said. Sitting in the audience, I felt fortunate my Burmese upbringing had prepared me to absorb every elegant phrase turn, every witty remark made by the great poet.

Tin Moe often quipped, "I've written so many long, epic poems, hundreds of lines depicting my homeland, about its history, about the lives of the people. Yet, everywhere I go, people just want to hear the one about smoking cigar." He was best remembered for his three-line poem titled "The Great Guest," considered a masterpiece for its brevity and infinite possible interpretations.

The cigar has burned down;
The sun is brown.
Send me home, my friends!

Some took Tin Moe's setting sun and shortened cigar to represent the end of a political era. Others argued the poem brilliantly summed up a dying man's resignation to the unknown, the wisdom that comes at one's twilight hours. When pressed to explain his poem, Tin Moe would say, "I'd smoked the last of my cigars. It was getting dark. So I needed a ride to get home. That's all!" But the mischievous smile and the twinkle in the poet's eyes suggested the poem was much more than that.

For his support of the 1988 student uprising, Tin Moe was imprisoned and tortured. He recounted his captivity in vivid details at the literary talk I attended. With some amusement, he recalled a prison guard who first apologized ("Please don't take it personally. I'm only doing my duty.") before beating him. After his release from prison, Tin Moe fled to the U.S.

Tin Moe wrote "Traveling by Train" soon after the death of his wife. The poem was composed in the four-syllable rhyme scheme, a widely used format in classical Burmese poetry.

In 2007, at the age of 73, Tin Moe passed away in exile in Los Angeles, California. He collapsed in a Mexican restaurant called "Uruapan," recalled his surviving daughter in her personal blog. Two years after his passing, she published the Burmese text of "Traveling by Train" as a tribute to her father. She wrote:

Life is, as my dad once said, like traveling by train. Dad got off at the stop called Uruapan. He hastened into the mist, carrying his satchel. He said, "Go on, my children! I'm going to take a nap now, get some rest from this weary life. I leave behind my convictions and my hope. I'm going ahead ..."

Traveling by Train

by Tin Moe
December 26, 1990

Without a groan, without a grumble,
The train chugs along.

Side by side, in adjacent seats,
We set out
Holding hands, with matching smiles,
Just the two of us.

In one station, under a tree’s
Soothing shade, with reddish hair
And winning smile,
A lovely child climbs in.

Then comes another,
A pitiable one with thanakha-painted cheeks.

In the next junction,
With tousled hair, with twisted strands
Comes another child.

With sweet smile and tender beauty
Another comes to join,
This time a girl.

The next one
A baby boy, a golden child,
He rounds up the cluster.

Happy!
At every stop, we eat, we go,
We chuckle all together;
At every pass, every turn,
She shares her loving care.

Summer, winter, and rain flowers
Flourish along the road we pave—
What a thrilling journey!

Then one evening—
As the train pulls into the dark,
She takes her leave
And fades into the mist.

Me and the kids, still on the train,
With chins propped on the windowsill,
Depart again with long faces.

Without a groan, without a grumble,
The train chugs along.

(Translated by Kenneth Wong)
Note: Thanakha is the paste made from aromatic wood, applied as cosmetic.