Forget Me, Mama!

For a bereaved mother, June 4, 1994

1

Forget me now, Mama!
Five years already,
Five whole years!
My blood stains on the Square
Long since washed clean,
My ashes blown far, far away.
Why do you still weep and cry?

Forget me now, dear Mama!
It’s really bad enough
I’ve not been around
To fill your days with joy,
How much worse it hurts,
Seeing your eyes dim with tears,
Your hair gone gray?

Forget me now, dear Mama!
I was only one of the thousands,
Thousands of daughters and sons
Who were swept away,
Lighter than a feather
Was my 17-year-old death.
So why don’t you forget?

Forget, dear Mama, forget!
Too much crying will ruin your eyes.
Then you won’t be able to see me smile,
Standing between you and Papa
In that happy picture
Taken on the Square
That sunny morning in May.

2

Dear Mama, why should you have regrets?
You were never wrong
In keeping faith and teaching ideals.
You were never wrong
In seeing me off to the Square
With tears of joy in your eyes,
Only two nights after Children’s Day.

Dear Mama, you were never wrong
In erecting a memorial
In the room where I used to play.
But the times are changing,
Wouldn’t you rather see me
Playing at the stocks or the karaoke,
If I were here today?

Dear Mama, you were never wrong
Keeping the memory alive
And compiling a bloody Who’s Who,
But I’ll not be around
To look after you,
When you’ve wrecked your nerves,
And in an asylum you stay.

Dear Mama, you were never wrong,
Though they branded you untouchable,
Kept you under watchful eyes,
And turned your visitors away.
But I would not blame it on the guards
Who may have been my schoolmates.
How could those eyes forget that day?

3

How could the Square ever forget
The tanks rolling over its bare breast?
How could the monument’s heroes ever forget
The bullets their hearts did spray?

I know you would miss me,
Especially on Children’s Day.
Now go take a walk about the Square,
Laugh with the little ones
Flying on the wings of the doves,
Under the giant eyes
Watching the dying and the dead.
When the children are my age,
They will know what happened here that day,
Feel my blood running in their veins,
Claim their past and have their say.
Go home now, dear Mama,
Bury my memorial in your heart,
Forget me now and go your own way.

Postscript: While staying at the Yaqun Lodge of Shaw College in the Chinese University of Hong Kong as a visiting scholar in the spring of 1994, I used to watch the CBS Evening News in the morning. On the second of June, turning on the TV as usual, I was surprised to witness Professor Ding Ziling being interviewed by Connie Chung in her government apartment at the Chinese People’s University in the western suburbs of Beijing. The loss of her 17-year-old son , an only child, on the Square five years ago brought tears to my eyes. And I was awed by her courage and stamina in compiling a list of the victims of the tragedy with the data she had been collecting in defiance of police surveillance over the years. In the evening, when I looked northward through my windows, my heart overflowed with sorrow. My feelings poured forth onto my computer screen; “Forget Me, Mama!” wrote itself. When the day dawned, I faxed it to the Eastern Express, which carried it in its “June 4th Special Page” the next day.

By the time spring came again to Hong Kong the next year, the poem had been set to music by Professor Debora DeWitt of the Music Department at Manchester College in Indiana. Thanks to a gracious invitation from Professor Andrew Parkin of the English Department of the Chinese University, she was able to fly to Hong Kong to present her song cycle at the annual Tolo Lights Poetry and Music Evening at Shaw College on 29 March, 1995. The soprano soloist, Miss Rosaline Pi, had been “drafted” at the last minute by my friends , Lai Wan and K. F. Chor of Shaw College, and the composer herself accompanied her on the piano.

Last Updated: August 16, 2004