Jailed since 2009, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo was moved from prison last month to undergo hospital treatment for advanced liver cancer. Liu and those closest to him are hoping that he will be granted permission to leave China for treatment abroad, but conflicting reports from authorities and visiting physicians indicate little chance that such allowance will be granted. As his supporters continue to issue calls for his release, poet Meng Lang today posted an untitled poem honoring the terminally ill activist, translated below:
Untitled
by Meng Lang
Broadcast the death of a nation
Broadcast the death of a country
Hallelujah, only he is coming back to life.Who stopped his resurrection
This nation has no murderer
This country has no bloodstain.They did a sleight of hand at the scene,
Those doctors, a sleight of hand, benevolent
and full of this nation, this country.Can you lose some weight? A little more?
Like him, alone, thinned down to bones
still buttressing the museum of mankind.Broadcast the death of a nation
Broadcast the death of a country
Hallelujah, only he is coming back to life.July 11, 2017, 12:58 a.m. [Chinese]
Poem translated by Anne Henochowicz.
