The rejuvenation of the old tree stump

Min Thu Wun: The Pyinma Stump

Lagerstroemia Flos Reginae (1949) 

Pic source: Tears in a bottle

 

Translated by G.H Luce

 

Dwarf stump-timber

Ancient Pyinma

Gnarled and twistered,

Knotted and wizened,

Like an aged Vulture, naked

On the Mound!

Where the quoining

Roots are joining,

Ants have nested,

Feasted, wasted;

Left a yawning

Ulcer, horning

To a scab.

Sunk in cranny

Near the summit,

Lies a helmet

Wan and scrawny,

Dented, broken

….. a sure token

War was here!

Dwarf stump-timber

Ancient Pyinma

Battles savage,

Termites’ ravage,

Knife-blade notching,

Sun-fire scorching,

Shock of tempest……

All thou bravest,

Head unbow’d!

Soon, when summer

Stils his humour,

Old leaves casting,

New leaves bursting,

Warm winds wooing,

Thou from ruin

Shalt renew thy

Youth of beauty!

Hero! Thou!

Source

 

For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its tender shoots will not cease. Though its root may grow old in the earth, and its stump may die in the ground, yet at the scent of water it will bud and bring forth branches like a plant. —Job 14:7-9 NKJV

Read about Min Thu Wun in,

• Wikipedia
• “Southeast Asian languages and literatures: a bibliographical guide to” … By Ernst Ulrich Kratz
• “Keep on flowing Ayeyarwaddy…”-anthology of the Myanmar Poetry –
• Rose (1932) p38, The Pyima Stump, (1949) p41 Poems translated by Dragan Janikovic
• Let’s Go A-gathering Thabye Plums Poems translated by Hla Myo Nwe
• Poems by Min Thu Wun English translation by Dr Maung Maung Nyo
• Sayagyi Min Thu Wun Centenary old photos in Burma Digest
• Myanmar sa Myanmar hmu (Burmese Literature and Culture) Min Thu Wun, in Burmese, Scribd