"I will love you till the sea runs dry
And rocks turn to handfuls of dust."

this refrain that rings through history
in curtained beds and back gardens
amidst lines of conscripts torn from their wives
in revolutions before young blood was shed
in candle-lit restaurants, boiling discos
on top of ferris wheels, in underground trains
and in prison cells torched by two minutes of sunlight
this refrain now stands
towering fifty feet and stretching half a mile
the last surge of a tsunami
caught in mid-air, transformed
this refrain hangs
like a perfect lie suddenly exposed

this single wave that remains of a sea
run dry at the height of its passion
roars like an echo of silence

this sea that dried into a single rock
still relives its splashes and sprays
in gusts of sand and grit

the sea ran dry but the rock stands
a monument to half-fulfilled promises
conjurer of deflated multitudes
now turned to dust

[Wave Rock is one of the best known geological features in Western Australia.]

by Eva Hung

Eva Hung was born and educated in Hong Kong, where English was used in school and Cantonese at home. After receiving her Ph.D. from London University, she joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1986. She is editor of Renditions, a journal specializing in the translation of Chinese literature into English. She also writes short fiction and essays in Chinese.

Eva Hung
Research Centre for Translation,
Chinese University of Hong Kong,
Shatin, N.T. Hong Kong.
Fax: (852) 2603 5110
Tel. (852) 2609 7385
Visit our websites:
http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/rct
http://www.renditions.org