I think of returning to the ruins but it’s already in vain.

Where’s Shideling, that I’ve entered countless times?

Where’s Yabzhi Taktser, that I’ve entered so many times?

Can a building so full of joy and sorrow be demolished with such ease?

Can a courtyard reverberating with laughter and weeping be covered with such ease?

Faced with so many replicas, I must keep my mind sober.

They really can’t resist covering up the scars of the past—

in the blink of an eye, in the flickering of a dream. Please, do not supplant

every single past disaster with false images. Texts and images

engrave every detail in memory, including the traces of bullets.

An autonomous land was reduced to a land without sovereignty,

from gradual collapse, now suddenly to this rapid demolition.

This increasingly crowded map is overwhelmed with unnecessary death

and rebirth. What kind of invisible force is behind this?

What new chapter is being rewritten?

A land without sovereignty is a land that has to be abandoned, it’s a land

where a dove occupies a magpie’s nest, where we unite as one in this moment of adversity.

Remember, cause and effect inevitably recirculate—please do not abandon

your beliefs and prayers. The true master has never truly been absent.

I merely wish to record this landscape that it may remain before it is destroyed.

And I would rather gather these counterfeits, which cover up the historical ruins,

and turn them into a memorial. But after a second thought,

wouldn’t that mean to acquiesce? To surrender yet again?

Just let me repeat the names of all the ruins,

let me try to recall the stories of all the ruins.

I promise, I will resurrect them in words. I’ll use the language

of the occupier, and like some form of archeology,

the nominal Lhasa shall be distinguished from some other Lhasa.

An immortality that cannot be returned to zero, an existence that is wild and intractable,

regardless if it is past or present, regardless if it exists or is lost.

—Woeser

(translated by Ian Boyden, January 26, 2021)