Chen Du
Dust on the Sill
I am reluctant to sweep
The dust on the sill
That the frigid time has left
That condenses or evaporates
With the wax and wane of the moon
Maybe someday in the future
Under the bright sunshine
I would count the motes of dust
One by one
Sift it for the special memories
Or mold part of it into a smile
Towards what life has endowed it
The seemingly minuscule
Yet magnificent metamorphosis
From something unknown
I will inquire the dust
Where it is from
To untangle the enigma
Of whether or not I would become
Dust on a sill someday in the future
A memory of another person
Who would count me
On a sunny day
Without knowing I am telling him about
My prelife and his afterlife
Chen Du has a Master’s Degree in Biophysics from Roswell Park Cancer Institute, SUNY at Buffalo, and another from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She revised more than eight chapters of the Chinese translation of the biography of Helen Snow, Helen Foster Snow: An American Woman in Revolutionary China. In the United States, her poems have appeared in American Writers Review, and elsewhere, and her poetry chapbook was published by The Dead Mule. Three poems co-translated by her and Xisheng Chen were finalists in The Gabo Prize for Literature in Translation & Multilingual Texts in 2020. Find her online at ofsea.com.