In The Light, A Love Story
A Golden Shovel*
After Tự Tâm' by Nguyễn Trần Trung Quân

The èrhú pierces the guzheng. The minstrelsy, shattered
Was never meant to play. Things end. Daybreak crowned into
Noon as if the glare wasn’t moving. As if the umbra pieces,
Evanescing, weren’t cyclical. Were permanent. The
Imminence of dawn shadowing dusk, and the wind
Is gentle to us, lover. Can you hear the soft melody? Has
The babel toppled our piety? How dare our worship be whisked
Away as if trivial. How dare the entity grieve. Go away,
Luminary, nourishing radiance in unholy sorrow, our
God has approached and departed with a promise
To return. And she, sheparded by the music, sets her boat
To the sea and descends to forgotten cities, Gliding
Past refracting light as if a star, little by little, rounding
The earth. And in the gloom, there is still light. Look up.
The sun has left herself with us. And these fragments
Will escort bodies to misremember legends of
Forefathers. They unlearn earthborn names the
Way moss veils gravestones to selfhood as if… waning?
No. Sculpting… the mountains to tether the moon.

—Daniel Crasnow

Daniel Crasnow is a multi-genre writer and scholar who recently graduated from Stetson University. He is gay and Jewish. He has been awarded a scholarship to attend the DISQUIET International Literary Program (2018) and was a resident at the DISQUIET Azores Residency (2018). His work is published in, or is forthcoming from, The Gateway Review, 30 N Literary Magazine, The Mochila Review, and more.

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*“Shattered into pieces, the wind has whisked away our promise, boat gliding, rounding up fragments of the waning moon.”
—Tự Tâm, Nguyễn Trần Trung Quân