HYACINTH'S WAY BY ZAWGYI

Hyacinth's Way (3)

WHICH VILLAGE LANDING PLACE

On the surface of the creek, in rows,
The friend of the water, the floating Beda flower
At the bank's bend lies still, at the straight on it goes,
The wind's still over the creek but the water, Oh! how it flows.

The reed-piper playing the pipe,
Competing the female Boke in melody,
Sits at the creek's brink site;
The Boke leads and the piper plays in antiphony,
He says, he yearned for Ma Beda,
Who comes and goes, with the tidal flows
The rising and falling water's flower.

The reed-piper with a little pipe, a sweetly playing one,
He says, go up with the tide, and down with the ebb glide
From which city and village landing place do you come?
And with blue blossoms, at which sandbank brown
Are you thinking of sleeping when the sun cools down?

Zawgyi
(University of Rangoon Annual Magazine, 1957-1959)

NOTE
Boke: The greater coucal bird (Centropus Sinensis)