"On A Stairway In Luang Prabang" first appeared in my 2009 book Tanon Sai Jai, which was available from Silosoth Publishing in Minnesota or as a free e-book.
I previously blogged that you can also see the Thai translation by Joy Panigabutra-Roberts or the French translation by Edouard Dupas at his blog. Kongkeo Saycocie provided a Lao translation in the contemporary Lao format here.
This is the original version in English:
This is the original version in English:
Step as you will through life,
A thousand ways, a thousand places.
Carry a home in your heart
Or spend years seeking the door
Where your soul will always smile.
Do you ease the way for others,
Or just yourself?
Do you climb great mountains
Just to leave them unchanged?
One day, the heights of holy Phou Si
Will lay as soft valleys.
We, only memories.
But our children's children?
Will they, too, have reason to smile,
Like those dreaming strangers
Who finished their stairs for us?
1 comment:
I see that this is an old blog, but I wanted you to know how happy I am to have found this poem. I'm a 7th grade English teacher who loves poetry. I've been making bookmarks for my students embossed with my favorite poems. Recently, I've begun to make bookmarks with poetry written in the home languages of my students. This poem will be perfect for a certain student!
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