A Forest of Names (July) by Ian Boyden

[Throughout 2018, we have committed to publishing a selection of poems from each month of Ian Boyden’s manuscript “A Forest of Names.” Over the course of a year, Boyden translated the 5,196 names of schoolchildren crushed in the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake. He then began a collection of poems, each written on the day of each child’s birth. An in-depth discussion of these poems can be read in “Fault Line: An Introduction to A Forest of Names.” —Eds.]

 

JULY 2

熊毅
Resolute Bear

One star for each year he lived,
circling our hearts like a long-handled spoon.

 

JULY 5

秀燕
Elegant Swallow

She flew around and around the pagoda,
bells hanging from the eves that still bear her name.

 

JULY 6

崗
Ridgeline

Each day, his name materialized above his name—
a cloud, held in a blue matrix of his own making.

 

JULY 8

翠玲
Kingfisher Jade Ringing

Were a bird to become stone and keep flying.
Were a bell to become feather and keep ringing.

She lay down her brush whispering,
Were earth to remain earth and stay still.

She left the brush dry without washing it.
The hairs became a solid point of black carbon
whose words were forever withheld.

 

JULY 9

傳坤
To Transmit Earth

Passed from one generation to the next,
this protean sphere rimmed with lightning.

 

JULY 10

陳林
Narrator of Forests

The forest seemed limitless, rising, leafing,
a fluid temple upon the undulating earth.

 

JULY 17

彬
Refined

As she wrote, a line of trees branched the blue void.
On the earth below, we read the shadow of her mind.

 

JULY 24

晏銘
Cloudless Inscription

Carved into stone, into the sky’s edge.
Shadows rolled, but never across his name.

 

JULY 25

依銘
Intimate Inscription

Tailored of ineffable cloth.
The subject of the inscription
the very matrix of its content.

 

JULY 26

焱文
Written of Infinite Fire

He captured just a little wisp of smoke.
Made an ink to give verse to an entire lifetime.

 

JULY 28

甜甜
Sweet Sweet

A name rolling with melons, hives of honey, fields of sugar cane…
but none sweeter than the child’s laugh.

 

JULY 30

天威
Celestial Awe

He carried no iron into battle.
When he lifted his hand,
he brandished the sky.

 

 

Read more from Ian Boyden’s “A Forest of Names” in the following links:

“Introduction to ‘A Forest of Names'”

A Forest of Names — January selections

A Forest of Names — February selections

A Forest of Names — March selections

A Forest of Names — April selections

A Forest of Names — May selections

A Forest of Names — June selections

A Forest of Names — August selections

A Forest of Names — September selections

A Forest of Names — October selections

A Forest of Names — November selections

A Forest of Names — December selections

“Fragile as an Urn: An Interview with Ian Boyden”