The Village Teacher
When the children have all left the classroom
the place feels empty
a pregnant teacher puts down her books, busies herself
with chores, takes a basket of vegetables to wash in the stream
Her husband climbs a wooden ladder
to install a new lightbulb in the room
far-off trees lift up the dusk
while birds fall out of the air like snow-white ash
It’s an ordinary day, heavy things
have not visited this piece of earth, and the world
is simple as when it was just made
God has finished his work, quiet
floating on the surface of a gleaming log
the cicadas are ferocious, the forest mighty as an ocean
the teachers live in a school that used to be a temple
in small rooms, with small beds, small tables and chairs
and there is no great future
you need to think about
About the translators
Austin Woerner is a Creative Fellow in Chinese-English literary translation at the University of Leeds.
Chen Yushu is an MA student in Postcolonial Studies at the University of Leeds School of English.