© by Bei Dao (b. 1949)
Translation by Bonnie S. McDougall (b. 1941)
When I whet the knife with dawn’s faint...
Language: English after the Chinese (中文)
When I whet the knife with dawn’s faint light I find the spine getting sharper while the blade stays blunt the sun flares the crowds in the high street are trees in huge shop windows the silence roars I see the stylus gliding across the tree stump’s rings towards the centre
About the headline (FAQ)
Text Authorship:
- by Bonnie S. McDougall (b. 1941), "Whetting" [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Based on:
- a text in Chinese (中文) by Bei Dao (b. 1949), copyright © [text unavailable]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Liza Lim (b. 1966), "Crowds of the living", 2018 [ soprano, percussion and chorus ], from Atlas of the Sky, no. 5 [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website: 2026-02-14
Line count: 10
Word count: 51