[archived]: autobio poems by changming yuan -1©

2014, 6, 29. sunday

The Lonely Climber: A Seed Poem

you are tired, terribly tired

    tired of climbing alone

            upon an unknown mt quazilla

your sons refused to join you

    feeling uncomfortable in your presence

your wife laughed at your childish idea

    preferring not to share your eccentricity

your fellow travelers are relaxing in cozy cabins

    enjoying a moment of borrowed privacy

            indifferent to your intent or interest

you threw your clothes and sweat                                          

    onto the dusk dyed trailside

            ready to present your naked soul to nature

happening  to see a multicolored stone                                                   

    you wonder if it was dropped by the philosopher

    or left over by nu wa while mending the sky

encountering a curious and cautious deer

    you sing above the top of your voice

    your favorite songs of the past with tears                           

            as if to blast your whole being against clouds

but the echo scares her away

            reminding you of your lonely tiredness

            hoping to get my own vision of the valley

i keep climbing, climbing and climbing

each time i manage to come upon a little slope

i found another edge higher ahead

    i stopped, hesitated and looked back

more times than i can remember

i know there is nothing for me on the peak

    except a few nameless wild flowers

            or some new branches of an ancient tree

but i keep climbing, climbing and climbing

    pushed by the inertia of life

            it is not a problem of climbing or not climbing

    nor a choice between two different roads

he will eventually lose sight of human footprint

but there will be a trail once he is there

all he wants to do is to forget the human fact

he cannot really escape but leave it behind

            down at the foot of the mountain

                        for now

Sowing after “Digging”

Above an empty sheet of paper

      With lines like the thin ridges

In an open fallow field

My snug pen squats

      As if waiting in ambush

Below my window, my father’s shaking shadow

      Is shrinking slowly but surely

Into a focus constantly adjusted

      By the noon sun of spring 

As he scatters some strange seeds

      Over the soil like salted brown rice

He has been preparing since last winter

By god, the old man enjoys sowing

Even more than his old man

My grandfather died at the age of 29

            In a hilly village in central china

He had cast every drop of his soiled sweat

      Onto a field not belonging to himself

It is said that he reaped little in autumn

Nor did he really care about reaping

Like a bridegroom planting his plump sperm deep

      In his bride’s virgin field on a mid-summer night

I am now sowing, with my pen

Decisive Discoveries

            the moment i squeezed into this world, i discovered that there was a quite big difference between light and darkness;

            the day my mom stopped breastfeeding me, i discovered that i could use my own toothless mouth to intake food and satisfy my hunger;

            at age 5, i discovered that the colorful marbles i had buried deep in the backyard of my house would never grow to be a magic tree as i had expected;

            when i was 7, i discovered that the gas emitted by a running truck had a peculiarly pleasant smell;

            at 11, i discovered that during drowning my body felt much lighter and more resilient than my spirit;

            at 14, i discovered that poetry looked very beautiful when i saw it with my mind’s eye;

            at 17, i discovered that i could say "down with chairman mao" in my heart without running any risk of being discovered and thus put into jail as a counter-revolutionary, as in the case of one of my classmates who had happened to misspell mao's name during a spelling quiz;

             at 22, i discovered that just as a political commissar could change my outer life permanentely, a charming girl could alter my inner being once and for all;

            at 28, i discovered that fathering a child was a joy forever;

            at 35, i discovered that many of my childhood dreams had actually come true without my knowing it;

            at 39, i discovered that a rented room was never a home, while a house of my own was nothing less than a whole climate of heart;

            at 47, i discovered that poetry was the religion i had been trying to convert myself to;

            at 49, i discovered that it was much easier to change or reform myself than anyone else, even my wife's little habit to leave her toothbrush and toothpaste around after use;

            since my last birthday, i have discovered that there are numerous new and interesting discoveries waiting for me to make...

                                                                                             

At VGH Emergency: A BC Story

[Pale with persistent pain]…Excuse me?

[No response from three chatting nurses]

[A bit louder] …Excuse me?

[No response from two chatting nurses]

[Timidly] …Knock, knock?

[One remaining male nurse yells with a ferocious face] Are you dying?!

[Terribly embarrassed] No, sorry, but I…

[In a much louder voice] Nobody, n-o-b-o-d-y knock here!

[More embarrassed with greater pain] I am so sorry, but…

[With a bit more professionalism] Since you are obviously not dying, wait over there!

Masking Up

to my surgeon in charge

my puffed piggy face

is just another common case

      of allergic reaction

to sensitive cefazolin

for my wife still with her appendix

      intact close to her idle womb

this face has all its wicked wrinkles

      ironed out, every caved-in surface

was evenly filled or dressed up

indeed, it looks younger, more attractive

      and even sexier, as if it had gone

through a perfect plastic surgery

but nobody except my old self

in this world of fret and frenzy

      suffering alone from the pink itchiness

as I long for the return of my own face

not handsome

but authentic enough

That Summer

 

we jumped naked

into the fond pond

of our boyhoods

where we loved to

loll and wallow

like playing dogs

chasing frogs madly around

from one lotus leaf to another

our pants beside the muddy path

blown far away

in a hot and humid dream

since then

our game has never been over

the White Goose

My grandfather was younger than my son

    When he died of an undiagnosed disease

        Somewhere in the Mid-South of China

So we have been told since childhood:

    He did nothing memorable or forgettable

        Left no picture of his or any handwriting

Not even one impression on my father’s senses

    Since he was born after he passed away)

But he had bought a big white goose

        To protect his infant son in his place

And a single-syllabled family name

Copyrighting every little poem

I have composed

In a foreign tongue

China Charms: on the Honghu Lake

Among dozens of colonies of lotus

The flowers grow in crowds of colors

            White, pink, red, blue or purple

Except all leaves green, as stems arise

      Straightly from blackish muddy lakebeds

As if to pave a path for a patrolling Buddha 

The most versatile plant in my original country

Lotus is now seen in terms of seeds and roots only

            Both sweet and crisp to its finicky eaters

While the much lauded purity of its big flowers

      Has become a forgotten foreign cliché

Under a cluster of tall and broad leaves

The boatman in straw rain cape suddenly squatted

      Not to hide from the summer shower

            Chasing the giggling seedpod pickers

      But to reveal a secret to me touring from Canada

            Each of those standing tall above the lake

            Has a groom lying flat on the water nearby

China Charms: At Zhangjiajie
(a UNESCO designated nature park)

Slim, tall and sedate
In the fluffiest garments
Of no human design
Each hill stands like a female model
Trying to display her charm and dignity
As if in a grand fashion show or
Like a fairy maiden at a casual party
Lost in a game unknown to passers-by

Amidst the morning mists
Flirtatious expressions of summer hills
I indulge myself in fits of a lover’s impulses
To give every protruding rock a dry kiss
And every slender tree a huge hug

I cannot help feeling deeply embarrassed
When my allen asks: who are they, dad?

China Charms: Visiting the Weisui Lake

The same kinds of pine trees

The bushes no less bushy or brilliant

The same lines of mountain ranges

As irregularly handsome

The waters also composed of h2o

Certainly just as clear and clean

With even more lively fishes swimming

In leisure, and in this unknown valley

How come it has not become a costly resort

Like the famous louise lake there

At the feet of rocky mountains, for instance?

China Charms: At Badalin, the Great Wall

Among thousands of climbers

Like so many fallen autumn leaves

Drifting up and down along an embedding stream

Names carved with keys and coins

Weathered over days, years and centuries

So many lives have been lost

As witnessed by fewer and fewer worn bricks

Breathless, I spotted a foreign black woman breathing hard

With a pair of shiny crutches

Standing against the darkening sky

How could you manage to come all the way here

By yourself? I wonder

China Charms: In Jinzhou Museum

1/ tripods

It was too difficult to make stone tripods

With nothing but stone axes or chisels

So our ancestors first tried to make one

Out of clay, then bronze and then iron

What kind of tripod can we construct now

Should we keep making tripods

With ever newer materials?

2/ jade cicadas

no, they are not cicadas fossilized

tiny, yet chubby with smooth skin

and full of translucent flesh

as so many twins born

over 4000 years ago

without laser technology, how did they

make so tiny a hole through the head

and thus fossilize its calls and songs?

3/ burial-urns

with a tripod for the ash

so directly connected to the dust on the ground 

to give as much room as possible

for the living soul separated not afar

in the middle by a perforated plank

to allow the traffic or communication

between the ashed body and roaming soul

but who was the designer

for the little gate on the cover

as if in a bird cage?

Ancestry Worshipping

No, we never planned it that way

But it so happened this seventh summer

I took my twelve-year-young son

To my father’s native village among hairless hills

In the far east end, the other side of the world

Which he had left as a starving orphan

And returned with me in the Mao suit

Like a magic-toyed boomerang   

When we were both at Allen’s age

            For the first times in our lives

Last time, my father forced the Little Red Guard in me

To kowtow, burn joss sticks and paper money secretly

            For his parents, whose dialect had survived

            Though I understood it only half-heartedly

This time, I cajoled my boy to grasp a handful of earth

      From the grave of my grandma worshipped by villagers

      (Her humaneness has supposedly made her a local deity)

And smuggle it to the backyard of our home in Vancouver

            Like some foreign seeds prohibited at the customs 

As we departed, again, our clan elder chanted:

            Under the shade of a new highway  

            This old grave will soon be erased…

                                               

Masculine Haiku: A Poet’s Family

Debao

Head and heart both bald

He’s not pulled out one single line

Except his surname

George

Using no poet’s lathe

He shaves off his young manhood

With an e-razor

Allen

Like son, like father

His voice has begun to break

All for poetry’s sake

Michael

To his great credit

He’s published two finest sons

Among his fine poems

Over This, Over Nothing

For God knows how many times

I have ever so strongly felt

Like crying at the very top

Of my hoarse voice

In a corner of twilight

Crying my nerves away

Crying my blood dry

Crying my head off

Crying my heart out

Crying my body up

And crying the whole sky down

But each time

There are no tears

Just no

Damned tears

A New Recipe She Invents after

Thirty years of Marriage

            (for Leo Dangle)

‘yummy, it tastes so good!’ he exclaimed.

‘really?’ she asked.

‘where did you learn the recipe?

These steamed fish chips are really delicious

With all this shredded green onion and fresh ginger.’

‘well, this is the third time I cooked

it this way. Do you really mean

you like the dish?’

‘of cuz! Why would I want to lie

about the food YOU cook?’

‘well, this is the only thing

i am never sure about you.’

‘are you?!’

On Osler Street, Vancouver West

somewhere down my neighborhood

as if the sun and moon were melting

all the cherry twigs tinged with spring

like morning glows fallen in the wood

beside the freshly mown lawns I jog

both my steps and breaths in keeping

with every little bare cluster humming

such a sweet tune in the silvery fog

is my residence here but a day dream

or is the day dream my residence here?

Last Meet with My First Love

meeting you face to face

you seem to hide yourself

behind a fog in another world

separated by the pacific in between

you often look like the flower

blooming on my window ledge

have a blue dream

and you will see a little cloud

drifting around like me

near that borderline

I have packed you up tightly

into my backpack, the luggage

I cannot consign, or sent by mail

but carry it with me

close to my chest

you are neither light

nor heavy, but you will

occupy a solid space

in the closet of my heart

Getting Newly Old

you can only talk

about what you used to do

and do

what you used to talk about

you shrink in both ways

and both ways are

the only way

to shrink

what’s supposed to be hard

softens like a boiled noodle

what’s supposed to be tender

hardens like a winter stone

one attempt

on top of another, they say

or, rather, one attemptable night

after another

Class 761, Shanghai

So you are the second one

From the middle in the first standing row

In a world of black and white

Is this the girl squatting in the front

Who you might have pursued hard

But your pride and prejudice prevented you

The tall and handsome guy from a high-class family

Who suspected your poverty had made you a thief

Before he lost and found his fancy watch in the dorm

And your make-do friend is the third one

From the left in the second standing row, the nice guy

Who had a really hard time passing every single test

Wait, there is more to it –

Who is the guy that has become the vice president of Citigroup

And who is the girl that died a miser-multimillionaire in Seattle last year

What’s happened to the character library building behind all of you

Did they really convert it into a brilliantly decorated hotel

To accommodate your travelling alumni, rich or famous?

Reading behind the Words

Behind the words is there no meaning squatting

Except a bold row of cheerful cherry trees

Standing tall in front of my half-fenced house

That bloom for two weeks in a year only

Between spring and summer

Behind the words is there no emotion hidden

But a pair of little unsung yellow birds

Popping up from nowhere

One has flown far away from home

The other still learning to fly close to the nest

Behind the words is there no metaphor explored

But a black and white photo of my parents

Who are hospitalized alternately in China

For the imbalance between yin and yang

A disease both blood-related  

This Is a Line

            (for Liu Yu and other mothers)

A line this is for my mother’s birthday

A birth line for my mother’s day

A mother for the birthday of a line

A celebration of my mother’s line of birth

Mother, I will line your birth with celebration

I will day a line with birth celebration, Mother

I will mother a day line with celebration

I will celebrate the mothering of a line

Mother, I will celebrate a line’s birthday

Mother my celebration of a line’s day

Mother my day’s line for a birthday

Celebrate my line with my mother’s birth

Celebrate the day with my mother’s line

Mother, I celebrate your birthday with a line

At Dusk in Dundarave Park, West Van

Strolling along

The overly trodden seaside walk

I find myself lost amidst human shapes

Constantly shifting

Into and out of one another

As they appear and disappear

Larger or smaller in size

Striving to linger one day, one month

Or even one year longer

Here and now

Within one of the bodies

A poem is taking shape, so is

A vision within another, so is

An evil plan within a third, so is

A bitter memory

A yearning

A bubble of consciousness

While I stop to stand still

Watching the vast sea view

Which is nothing but a view of the sea

Mindlessly

Inner Drought*

           

In this lower mainland, rain is the order

Of the day: while the drizzle moisturizes

Dreams and drama alike, storms have filled

Every crack and crevice with seasonal juice

But deep in your body has been a drought

Persisting ever since your birth, no plant

Grows green enough, no bird comes to perch

On a bough, all pipes and rivulets dry

Oh, for a rich rain to moisten and irrigate your

Inner fields, your cells, your nerves, your hopes

I would sacrifice my fatherhood, provided you

Could take a shower in the open, with your spine

Stemming straight like a strong young tree

*My 15- year-old son Allen has had a disc problem since 2008, which has resulted, according to traditional Chinese medicine, from the internal ‘dryness’ he was born with.

America Deep in Debt at Everett

On the morning of March 3

I was driving south light-heatedly

Along I-5, as an invited reader to perform my poetry

To a friendlier post-bush America

When a gloomy-looking trooper (numbered 837)

Suddenly stopped me supposedly for my safety’s sake

I must give you – eh, a speeding ticket.

-Why me sir! I was just following the traffic.

But you are the first one I saw.

-Simply because I have a Canadian license plate?

If you were an American, I would do the same.

Lost in anger against such blatant discrimination

(Or bad luck?) I stopped protesting

While shaking my head all the time, peacefully

Oh, poor America! Look at this armed boy of yours

He is ambushing your neighbor like a robber

To help bail you out of your big financial shit

I thought, but never said so

For fear of getting another ticket, bigger or thicker  

The Privilege of Being a Poetry Scribbler

On the early morning of March 3, I was detained

At Peace Arch by American Customer Officers

For intending to sell my autographed copies

Or smuggling my poems in a book form

It’s illegal to come to America and sell your stuff.

-Yes, I understand, I understand.

You are not allowed to get paid for reading poetry.

-I will remember this, remember this.

Another officer could have refused you entry.

-Sure, sure, surely sure.

But you are excited about your poetry

Both my chief and I want to be nice to you.

-Thanks! May I know and use your name in a poem please?

It’s CBP Officer Eric Sachs, but don’t get me into trouble.

Knowing my Canadian passport would expire within six days

I drove fast to hell of a heaven, and heaven of a hell

While it was still valid

The Poetic Persona

He never calls himself a poet

(a title too high-sounding to be self-styled

Or too much abused to be meaningful?)

But he cannot wait to peruse his own piece

(and his piece only) each time he receives

His contributor’s copy from a print magazine

Something he can hold in hand, something

Smelling of ink, something ready to make a noise

When he flips through the pages

To locate his own (again) among bio notes

All in third person, all bubbling

With self-pride, self-expectations

While he is eager to show his heart-hammered work

To his wife, his sons, his students

Even salespersons or strangers who happen to drop by

With one of the few associates he has

(Who shares neither interests nor understanding

Not to mention the sense of achievement)

He believes in the entire issue, perhaps

The whole literary world, only his printed words

Truly stand out --he never says that

Because no one can hear him even he does so

How happily he would die on the spot

If only he could write one single original line

(like ‘The meaning of life, if any at all

Is to create a meaning for life”) that might

Become a cliché in the future

Both near and far

He Saw a Woman He Admires

He saw a woman he admires

Serving a fellow citizen at the adjacent outlet

In a passport office the other day

She did have an eye contact with him

But that was not what she had intended

Nor did she have any afterthought about him

While he was overwhelmed with the urge

To tell her he admires her, loves her

Tho not coquettish as cover girls or movie stars

Her posture is certainly graceful

Her smile more than a professional show

Her eyes soul-grabbing, tho she had no idea

About what was going on in his mind

As she checked the name, dob, emergency contact

And every other detail on the application form

Submitted by another citizen, who is so lucky

To obtain a passport from this young woman

Did she notice my excitement?

Would I ever have a chance to see her again?

He will be haunted by such questions

Wherever he travels with the passport

Issued from the building where she works

Although she never knows there is a stranger

Who longs to tell her he loves her, admires her

The Death of a Chinese Widow

In a remote Chinese village

On a forgotten winter night

A 38-year-old poor woman

Tried hard to sit up noiselessly

Put aside rather than on her padded clothes

Crawled out of her frameless bed

And resolutely drowned herself

In a broken wide-brimmed water jug

Behind herself she left neither worth nor words

Except three teenagers who had been

Bullied and looked at with slanting white eyes

By their fellow villagers

(who bore the same family name)

Ever since their father died

Of an untreated disease

13 years before

Years later, her children understood

Why she killed herself

In a water jug on that night

Many years after she had been suffering

From a painful

But not fatal disease

Years later, her only son told me

Why my grandma

Chose to drown herself almost naked

On that cold night

Twilight  Hanyang County

Twilight  Hanyang County

My father was eight

Yes, as young as eight

Maybe only seven

Burning with sweat

On his way to nowhere

In front of him a wild fellow dog

(He was a dog according to Chinese zodiac)

Was grumbling angrily with hanger

While dry grasses and leaves

Were swept from field to field

And rain clouds too heavy with dusk

Sacking down towards bald hills

Dying of thirst and heat

Both caused by an unknown fever

He dragged himself close to a pond

Smelling of rotten reeds and water buffalo shit

There he drank to his full

Wrapping his legs with fresh mud from the bottom

To keep himself cool for the night

The next morning  he would continue

Wandering around outside his fatherless home

Like a premature vagrant

Codisil to Allen Qing Yuan*

After I die, Son

Wrap my body with my poems

Put all my remains

In an e/cask, and send it

To a site that will

Never be on hiatus

By burying me online

You can readily

Trace my soul traveling

From one living screen

To another

As long as you have access

To the virtual space

*Under my influence, my 15-year-old younger son Allen Qing Yuan has not only begun to write poetry but also had poems appearing in a number of literary magazines.

Partner Perspective

When we were younger

My wife and I used to

Look at each other as true equals

Since we were both 1.64 meter tall

No matter where we stood

Now we are getting newly old

She begins to look down on me

Because I have been shrinking

In every conceivable way

She can perceive

Ischemia

In my line of people, especially on my father’s side

There never seems to have been ample blood

Running within the arteries behind our Chinese chests

No matter how warm-hearted we actually are

As in the case of my father, who used to

Accuse me of being an ill-hearted teenager

My heart muscle is imbalanced

As one side is less infused with blood

Than the other, thus causing palpitation

Short breath, and a strong sense of

Tightness, heaviness or tiredness about life

To diagnose my cardiovascular defection

Neither an echo nor a stress test is needed

For I am keenly aware of my own doomed

Arteries that have been clotted  

With too many syllables

Voiced or voiceless 

And to make all these sounds flow out of my heart

Is already stressful enough

Nevertheless, I will keep pumping out these words

Be they ever so blood-soaked

Living a Posthumous Life

The moment it is confirmed

I could die any moment of my newly

Discovered heart disease, I began to

Perceive a dull wall between my senses

And the world around me

I write, so I still am, but this distance

Or lack of feeling of immediacy

Has caused me to die

Well before my heart stops beating

Like a dripping tab

Changming Yuan

1550 W 68^th Ave

Vancouver, BC

Canada V6P 4V5                                                                               

Curse in Verse: An Ischemic Tradition*

As if this had been a family curse

You have all the symptoms of ischemia:

Palpitations, short breaths, irregular heartbeats 

Although no test results show you

Having a physiological cause of the problem

While your family doctor keeps wondering

Why you do not have enough blood

Flowing around behind your Chinese chest

You know your heart muscle as a sponge

From which you have squeezed out

Too many of your blood-rooted words

Like your father, like your son

* While my dying father Yuan Hongqi has never been able to get his poetry published, my 16-year-old younger son Allen Qing Yuan, who suffers greatly from disc problems, has already had his poems appearing in a number of countries. 

* While my father Yuan Hongqi, who died of heart diseases in January 2012, was never able to get his poetry published, my 16-year-old younger son Allen Qing Yuan, who suffers greatly from disc problems, has already had his poems appearing in eight countries. 

Baby Wife: domestic democracy

She is always in perfect health

Except she is super-allergic to criticism

Indeed, even a suggestion about a small error

Would cause her to resent against you for a whole month

If you say this dish tastes a bit too salty

She would yell: “From now on, you do the cooking!”

When you advise her not to buy junk food for your teenager son

She would buy more for the months to come

After you hint that she might have written another wrong check

She would refuse to make love for an entire season

Before you attempt to have a nice chat with her

She would make a sarcastic remark

That she has been refining since last year

So you keep communication at the minimum level

Just to maintain normal family functions

Until you two feel too happy to continue the cold war

About how much more assets you have newly accumulated

Never make any negative hints about your woman 

Or you will be drowned to a slow death in this swirling cycle

The Lilac in Front of My House

Leaves hip-hopping to the music of early summer

One long branch flirting with every passer-by

Trunk shaking with laughter from last spring

But behind the fence, your roots remain firm

Never budging a single inch, between day and night

While I feel sorry for your confinement all your life

You winged seeds keep travelling in the whole neighborhood

Mustache Or No Mustache

Unable to attain a new birth

I tried to take a new look instead

By shaving off my mustache

The American standard that I have

Been wearing since teenager years

But my teenager son says I look funny

My wife finds me a weird stranger

Even I myself hate to see that ugly

Seeming-naked guy in the mirror

Making me feel eerie and disgusted

To all strangers I look a perfectly normal man

But to my associates I appear like a monster

So, I wait, for my features, to return, wondering

If a new look can never get reconciled

With an old self, or perhaps vice versa?

Apical HCM

Unlike those young strong-bodied athletes

Who may keep running asymptomatically

Until a sudden death, I have had constant

Chest discomfort, short breaths, palpitations

All typical of hypertropic cardiomyopathy

Though a specialist has assured me this is

A congenital condition, which allows me

To live as long as I can make utterances

Indeed, with an abnormal heart muscle

Thicker at the apex than that of my wife

Or any other fellow being except my son

(Who may carry on this tradition), I can

Soak more consonance, more assonance

Right there than in, say, a big kimchi pot

Once these syllables become fully fused

With warm blood, my heart will pump them

Out through my yellowish-voiced throat

Converting to Vegetarianism

now eating nothing

but tomatoes, potatoes

carrots, cabbages,

apples, watermelons

cherries, strawberries

sorghum, pepper

i recognize them all like true communists

either in appearance

or in heart

while their lycopene may contribute

to the well-being of my ischemic heart

i can only draw bloody memories from them

about summer fields

about all my red pasts in China  

Fatherly Fear: To Allen Qing Yuan

           

how much

just how much love should I show you, Son

I do not know, I only know

how I had tried

how I’d persisted in having you as my second child, a lifelong companion to your bro

how I had found the greatest joy in merely seeing you after each long and hard day

but I never meant for you to have been

36 days prematurely born, and to have begun

Suffering so much when you were only 12 years old, suffering

from a terrible drought within your Chinese skin, suffering

from bulged disks that cause you to walk like a cripple, suffering

from sciatic pain when you move around, suffering

from having to withdraw from your school's volleyball team, suffering

from lacking the confidence to emulate your elder brother, suffering

from your limitations to kick, jump, run, bend like your friends, suffering

from your inability to work outside home to earn your own money, oh Son

I do not know, I do not know how much love I should show to you:

if a bit too little, you would feel disappointed of my fatherly love

if a bit too much, I fear heavens would be so jealous as to take you away from me

indeed, how much

just how much love should I show you, Son

I do not know, I only know

after I die, my other self will stand right behind your back

wherever you are, whenever there is or there is no sunshine 

ready to protect you against all evil gods and ghosts

but while still alive, I do not know, Son

how much love I should show you:

if a bit too little, you might feel disappointed of my fatherly love

if a bit too much, I fear heavens might be so jealous as to take you away from me