Autumn Yun-Ting Tsai
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And the girl met the silver ash for his tunes, 
and hummed her way back home.

Mom's Childhood Home

9/25/2025

 

Road trip to the south

9/24/2025

 

September 24th, 2025

9/24/2025

 

Memories of September

9/24/2025

 

Pater Noster in Schreyahn

9/21/2025

 
Pater noster, qui es in caelis
Sanctificetur nomen tuum;
Adveniat regnum tuum,
Per spatia ordinum et caelorum.
In silentio fiat harmonia,
sicut et dicebat homo ille:
"Diverse voci fanno dolci note,”
et in harmonia factum sit silentium.

ft. Andrés García-Rengifo

Icarus, 2025 Revision

5/9/2025

 
And for years they will call you 
the reckless puer who flew too high
who reached the sun and plunged to death.

And no one knew that 
your destination was never the next shore;
Neither was your flight from the high maze.

They would never know that
Boötes, Helice, and Orion have 
taught you the secrets of their songs.

To reach too high is far better than 
to fall into the ways of the man
who sows the land and knows not an end.

Your story will be told as a tale for 
Boys and girls to bow to their yoke and 
You will be ridiculed, forgotten, forsaken. 

Unlike Daedalus who sang so well
that his cow and clew sent his voice
into the maze of his own grave.
​
His opera are remembered such 
that children will study his opera
                         — the man who acted. 

Yet Icarus, Icarus, ille qui cedidit,
Aren’t the lights in the ocean singing
the same song of the falling spheres?






​
 -- Revised from 2020.04.21 poem "Icarus."

Gone with the rainy season

6/25/2024

 

This is a translated excerpt of the 2024 project "Gone with the rainy season". 

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Story of the Lamb

11/30/2023

 
Io sentia d’ogne parte trarre guai
e non vedea persona che’l facesse;
per ch’io tutto smarrito m’arrestai.”

-- Dante’s Inferno, Canto XIII: 21-24.

1.
Ashley cannot sleep.
Before her bed, moonlight shines too brightly through her window
(or at least that’s how she remembers it).
The world is so still in her white little room that she cannot tell the hour.
In silence, she sits up and peers through the window.
She imagines a breeze coming through the silt.

2. 
It seems that her time alone is frozen in the stream of life,
and that there is nothing in the world that
beseeches her in the little room where she stays.
In this eternal silence, the door slowly creaks open behind her.
Ashley.
Startled, Ashley beams into a smile
as she hears the familiar voice of the kind gentleman.
You are here!
She bursts into the laughter of a summer bird.
Of course I am; we made a promise.
The tall figure walks into the little room and sits down beside her bed;
he touches her forehead. Ashley thinks his hand is rather cold.
You don't have a fever today.
But of course I don't, I behaved well.
Good. Did you do your assignments?
And out of his brown suitcase, he pulls out some scrambled papers--
Ashley hears the rustling of the paper and sits up straight,
which makes the gentleman smile. He covers his lips
so that he does not laugh, and then he clears his throat,
changing into a stern, serious look.
Begin, please.
And then she narrates the story in such a manner as if each word is inscribed into her memory.
It is how one reads, she has always thought.
Learning by heart is the only way for her to connect to the outside world.

The world she had never understood.
3.
Why did Virgil ask Dante to break the branches?
This is actually a good question. Do you have your Aeneid?
Yes, but...
You find Virgil mean.
Apparently!
But what was Dante’s reaction?
How did he react towards Virgil? And the souls?
Do you think Virgil should have acted otherwise?

He walked to turn on some lamplights. Ashley straightened her back.
I think I heard something.
Nothing is there, Ashley.
But certainly, something is there--
Come back here.
Okay.
She sinks back into her bed. Crouching on her pillow, she holds the rose between her thumbs.
Good. Can you answer my questions now?
Yes.
She replies patiently, though she has no idea what the question is.
She ends up murmuring a little whisper:
Sorry... I lost track.
The Lamb smiles upon noticing her guilt and speaks kindly:
Would you tell me where Dante and Virgil are in this passage?
Excuse me, who?
She responds to the stillness outside the window.

4.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl whose name was Ashley.
Ashley had long black hair that touched her knees,
and a pair of big grey eyes that sought the sunlight.
She lived in a little room with a little window.
Next to the window was a little bed where she lay alone.
Beside the little bed, a little table
held an open book on its warm white surface.
Everything around her was white,
including a white little rose beside her white little table,
which was next to her white little bed.
It was a white little rose wrapped with a black ribbon,
smelling like the fresh meadows in early spring.

Sometimes, the Lamb would enter her white little room,
and they would journey a little together in Dante’s Inferno.

The Space in Between/ 無題

1/30/2023

 
Listen on Soundcloud
More Information about the publication at L/NT Art Collective:
Audio recording/ https://www.lintartcollective.com/work/lint-issue-01-2021-ng8p9 
Magazine gateway/ https://issuu.com/lintartcollective/docs/moscovita-cult-magazine-a4 

I am not free.

1/12/2023

 
I am not free. 
I am a butterfly 
trapped in a jar. 


The boys caught me in the wild, 
tricked me with their honeyed tongue. 
I fluttered my way out, 
they see it as a dance. 
Dance! Dance! Dance! 
They cried. 
Startled by the horrifying noise,
I fluttered some more. 
But all I could do,
Was making some weak noises on the glass.


The sun light scorches me.
The air boils. 
They ordered me to dance some more.
Shouting, yelling, screaming, 
Beating the jar, 
with eyes magnifying on the glass.
Then you will be free. They said. 
I fluttered, fluttered, fluttered some more. 


And my mind wandered. 
To the trees, the rivers, and the honey.
The flowers watched. 
Dancing with the breeze,
Silently, gently, danced with the breeze. 
I have grown tired. I thought.
So, so, so very tired.
And I started to dance, 
With the song of the nature,
I had truly loved. 


Ah, how ugly it is. The wings are broken.
It is no use for specimen now.
They opened the lid. 
And I fell out, quietly.
On the grass that nourished my childhood.
The sky, the sun, and the flowers looked at me.
That was some sweet honey. I thought.
Dream, dream, dream away.
And the boys grew
The flowers slept,
The earth hid my body away.


I am not free. 
I am a butterfly 
trapped in a jar.
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