Poem
Song Wei
Muchuan County Chronicle: The Book of People or Rural Affairs in the Southern Basin
0Standing under the gray clouds, on a grayer roof,
he holds a lightning rod and takes a bird’s-eye view
of his rainy Muchuan County:
candy factories are sweet, bean factories are salty,
rice warehouses smell fragrant, and mice are fat.
Shadows between the wooden stakes are quiet.
Birds on the electric power lines are black.
Bicycles travel a long way.
1
Under a cherry tree, there was a small vegetable patch.
Is it still green but unkempt?
There are turtledoves, mountain rabbits, mountain eagles,
owls, slugs, and wood beetles. And fish in the pond.
And flying saucers
that fly across from the mountains from time to time
bringing suspicious light mixed with fragments of dreams.
And the gecko that used to practice climbing hills
on my window screens
finally falls one day into my liquor jar.
2
And more villains fall over the terraced ridge.
Spring rain falls like cooking oil.
He falls ill. When he finally wakes up,
he digs fishy smelling herbs to treat his ear.
A barefoot doctor walks over the loamy soil.
When he hurts his sole,
a bone-shaped mushroom wakes up.
On the mulberry tree, empty lungs hang in the wind.
The jade-green of Spring glissades through the lungs
into the heart and shoots out with buds and sprouts.
The Bronze Man* grows messy hair this way,
his scalp cool and clean, his eyes bright.
The village is small with terraced rice paddies,
everything so clear you can see right through your life.
He looks at Spring in detail, a bucket of well-water,
a basket of mulberry leaves, a tree full of cherries,
cool rain with clear threads of rain water.
*The ancient Chinese poet Li He (790–816) had a well-known poem about the Bronze Man made by Han Emperor Wudi (156-87 BCE) to catch the dew from the moon as an elixir of immortality. (Translator’s note)
3
He tries to learn witchcraft and observes
what the village masters do.
His uncle chants curses while drinking.
He spits well-water at his youngest son,
the one with the broken legs.
The water sprays like tobacco smoke.
The broken legs immediately become wings or wheels
flying around the courtyard.
And the little rebel soon dashes away without a trace.
Still his uncle is not satisfied.
He spits saliva in the yard. His neighbors are cooking lunch
but by dinner time their lunch is still not ready –
raw rice in the wok, which makes him happy.
He drinks his liquor, contented.
4
He drinks water by the river and swallows
a few small fish. Like a cup he is filling himself
with clear water. No, like a human-shaped fish tank
he is changing water, transparent.
A small fish swims through the bloody water plants
inside his lungs. A tadpole is waiting
to grow four groundless legs. Like a tadpole,
he expects all aquatic creatures to grow into women.
He would like to take turns living in their bodies,
one at a time, like the Grass Monk.* He would swim serenely
between the warm bodies remembering each of them.
And they would continue to submerge, their fins sweeping
the shallow bottom without knowing that the secret fun
is speeding them up – to the blue clouds.
*Grass Monk is an erotic character from the Qing dynasty novel Strange Stories by Pu Songling (1640-1715). (Translator’s note)
5
He sets up a theater group on the grass stage
to put on a Sichuan Opera. His face motionless.*
A high-pitch voice comes from behind the scene,
thin and sharp, trickier than an embroidery needle.
His body moves so light, like air, you can catch a glimpse
of him only when the light changes: a floating shadow.
Indeed he is so light, almost not touching the floor.
Only the beautiful females can hold his flickering
and his gaze. In this season who is the spectator?
Well, his slim body performs somersaults like the Monkey King.
Even the prodigal Yanqing in the Water Margin fiction
was no better than this.
* Sichuan opera is one of the oldest forms of performing art in China that revived in the 20th century. The main feature is “face changing” where the actors change their masks quickly like a magic. (Translator’s note)
6
He passes by blacksmith shops, white metals flash.
He himself is a metal shop collecting all the light,
brighter than the sun.
He slops on wooden clogs, slovenly. Wandering alone,
he crowds the entire market.
He wants to indulge in money and harden his heart,
not shedding tears in front of coffins.
Coffins are just containers for rice, in different shapes.
Tears can shine and polish the coffins.
He crosses mountains and waters with a rice container.
He collects the rent or corpses.
He has traveled all over Mt. Fang and Mt. Qi
like a Mr. Geography chasing ghosts.
7
He used to have clean lungs and his quiet breathing
could turn windmills over the water’s surface.
Now weeds have grown and filled his lungs.
His body rusts like a rusty sickle that cuts weeds.
His field of happiness lies beyond, on the hillside
temple of a female Buddha who is still single.
Clay heart and clay lungs in a clay body.
How far is it from the real body?
Even the harvest fails to arouse his ancient desire.
Yeah, the field after harvest teems with the parched cry
of crickets.
8
This is the profound knowledge of the game:
Listen to the sound of the reed, pay attention
to the yo-yo’s spellbound spinning, jump with two feet
to get the tricky Feng Shui when practicing hopscotch,
or claim to be a wooden puppet without a string attached.
Time is concealed in the middle of all of these.
Now he’s holding a searchlight to find them.
Time resurfaces from there –
it exposes their texture under the spotlight,
not worn out yet,
while the hand that holds the string in the shadow
awaits his return.
Turn around and look back,
yesterday remains there, waiting for him on his porch.
His folks are kneading lard into white sponge cakes.
9
Right now he’s wearing a pagoda-shaped cap,
his feet on peg stilts. He crosses overhead
like a cloud and reaches the cool bridge.
I look up to see the split crotch of his pants,
and I can hear his balls bursting chaos.
At this moment he has returned to me on a paper kite.
I chase his sliding shadow.
When he flies over the wall, I climb up the cloud ladder
and sit down on top of the flagpole. I touch
the long bird-tail of his shirt. I guess
he is holding an embroidered portrait of master Luban.*
And so he walks into the clouds, just like that,
and sees the sunset feasting in the distant mountains.
Other people have also witnessed this grand moment:
“A sunny bird quivers
flying over the Mu Rivers.
On a twig of flowers
it catches the sunset hours.”
* Luban (c. 507–444 BCE) was an ancient Chinese carpenter and inventor, revered as the Chinese God of carpentry. He invented the cloud ladder and wooden bird. (Translator’s note)
0
Now it’s March again, many years afterwards.
He is no longer sentimental about Spring,
or getting sick on liquor. Things have changed.
He can no longer hear the flowering language of plants.
His mind is a wedge of pig iron,
nothing knocks to wake it up. His Spring is outside
of his body, in another life
that not even his afterlife can reach.
One March sometime in the past,
he sang in a silent voice, faint but clear, as if
even people from as far away as the horizon could hear.
Sometimes he focused on things unnoticed by others,
small joys, voices of orioles, crickets and showers of rain.
He kept silent for them. It was that Spring
that he faced Mt. Qi, the fairytale land.
His body was a garden.
© Translation: 2017, Ming Di and Kerry Shawn Keys
➀ The cited four lines are from a Guizhou folk song, except that the original “Wu Rivers” is replaced by “Mu Rivers”.
沐川县纪事：下南道的农事书或人物志
沐川县纪事：下南道的农事书或人物志
0站在灰云下更灰的屋顶，
手扶避雷针，他鸟瞰多雨的沐川县：
糖果厂多么甜，豆瓣厂多么咸，
米仓多么香，仓鼠多么肥，
木桩间的阴影多么寂静，
电线上的鸟多么黑，
自行车多么远。
1
樱桃树下，那一片园中的小菜畦
还保持着零乱的翠绿吗?
斑鸠，山兔，岩鹰，猫头鹰，
蛞蝓，柴虫，塘中的鱼，还有飞碟
不时在对面的山岭上降落，
带来与梦境混同的可疑的光。
而在纱窗上练习攀岩的壁虎
有一天跌落于酒坛中。
2
更多小人滑倒在田埂上。春雨如油
让他一病难起，甦醒时
随手撬折耳根疗疾。
赤脚医生踩踏软泥前来，足心一痛
一块骨朵般的茨菇被唤醒。
桑树上，空空的双肺迎风悬挂，
春天的翠绿沿着叶脉或肺脉
钻进心底，再和芽一起冒出头顶。
铜人就这样长出乱发，丝丝如注
头皮风凉而白净，双目也通明。
阡陌间，村庄细小而清晰，一生都被看完。
他看春天具体而微，就是一桶井水，
一篾桑叶，一树樱桃，一场凉丝丝的雨。
3
学习巫术，观师时
他看见农村的表叔一边喝酒
一边念观音咒。后者的小儿子
摔坏了腿，于是他含了一口井水
像喷叶子烟一样，将水雾
洒向小儿子的坏腿：腿立时
变成了翅膀或轮子，满院里乱飞。
这小哪吒一晃就没有了踪影。
他余兴未了，又朝天井
吐一泡口水，于是邻居的中饭
煮到晚上还是一锅生米。
他啊，高高兴兴喝他自己的小酒。
4
他在河边饮水，喝入了几条小鱼。
他像一只盛装清水的杯盏
在盈满；不，他像一只透明的人形鱼缸
在换水。一尾小鱼在穿越他肺叶的
血腥水草，一粒蝌蚪
在等待流水莫须有的四只腿。
他也如蝌蚪一样，以为所有的水生物
都会长成女人；他还想如灯草和尚一般
轮番住进她们的身体，
在那些温暖的水草间穿行。
他呀，识得她们的水性，在里头游刃有余。
而她们继续潜行，鱼翔浅底，
浑不觉这隐秘的乐趣
正令她们加速，直上了青云里。
5
他在草台上搭起一个班子
搬演一部川剧。他不变脸，却一心听
幕后帮腔的高音，比绣花针更像一个奸细。
他的体态如空气，只有通过
光线的变化或光景的迁移
才能偶尔得以一瞥：全然是白花花的飘影。
但他实在是如此轻盈，几乎不在原地。
只有更美的娇娘能挽住他的闪烁，以及
他的定睛。这时节哪一个才是看客？
好呀，他的轻薄与跳脱如一个孙悟空的筋斗云，想当初
浪子燕青也不过如此。
6
他经过白铁铺子，金属闪光，铁钻乱响。
他自己就像个白铁铺子，收集了街面上所有的光，
比太阳还明亮。
他趿着木屐，吊儿郎当地，他一个人的游荡
比整个集市还要拥挤。
为了让钱财进一步迷糊他的心窍，
他不见棺材不掉泪：棺材
只是另一具盛装粮食的方斗，
而泪水是浇淋棺木的养份。
他越山涉水，扛上这只斗去走山。
为了收租或收尸，他像个
撵阴的地理先生
走遍了房山和旗山。
7
他曾经有一怀清洁的肺，寂静的呼吸
吹动过水面上风车斗转的轮子；
如今他的双肺中长满杂草，
含金量如一只割草的镰刀在锈蚀。
他心中的福田如今只是山腰里
一个单身女观音的庙产：泥胎中的
泥心与泥肺，离真身有多远?
连丰收也未能激起他古老的性欲。
呀，收割后的田间充满了蟋蟀干旱的叫喊。
8
这些都是游戏中的深奥知识：
侧耳倾听响簧的音律，注目于
陀螺晕眩的旋转，以双脚
践约跳房子时的风水流程；
或以木头人自比，失却了提绳的牵引。
时光就藏在这些事物中间。
如今他用一只探照灯
向其照射，时光又现身于这些
一一掠过的聚光下，并暴露出
它们未曾磨损的质地。
而提线的手埋伏在墙角的暗影中
等待他的重临。
转个弯，只须一个回首，
昨天保持原样，在台阶上等他回家。
家人们正把猪油揉进雪白的泡粑。
9
此刻，他头戴宝塔形高帽，脚踩高跷
像云朵一样掠过头顶，一晃
就到了凉桥：我得以仰望他开衩的裤裆，
听睾丸一阵乱响；
此刻，他乘纸鸢到来，
我追着他地上一路滑行的影子，
他飞越城墙的一刻，我架上云梯
坐在旗杆顶端的旗斗里，去摸他鹞尾似的衣袂。
我猜他怀中揣着一张鲁班先师的绣像。
就这样，他并不借力助跑
起身踏上云端，看见了
落日在远山间的盛宴。
也有别的人目睹了这盛大的一刻。君不见：
一只小阳雀，
飞过沐溪河；
站在花枝上，
看倒太阳落。①
0
多年以后的这个三月
他已不再伤春或病酒。
一切都变了，他不再能
倾听植物抽芽或开花的语言，
因为他的头脑中全是用生铁
铸就的一块砧，但缺少哪怕是
零星的敲击。如今他的春天
在体外，在来世不及的
另一次生活中，或者
在从前的某个三月。
有时，他用一种寂静的声音唱歌，
歌声虽小，但很清晰，
仿佛远到天边的人也能听见；
有时，他专注于内心不为人知的
欢乐，用黄雀、蟋蟀或阵雨的语言
保持沉默。在那个春天，
他对面的旗山是神仙的世界，
他的身体是一座花园。
2003-04-04～12，初记
2015-10-14，重抄
© 2003, Song Wei
① 所引为贵州山歌。第二句原文为“乌江河”，此处置换为“沐溪河”。
Poems
Poems of Song Wei
Close
Muchuan County Chronicle: The Book of People or Rural Affairs in the Southern Basin
0Standing under the gray clouds, on a grayer roof,
he holds a lightning rod and takes a bird’s-eye view
of his rainy Muchuan County:
candy factories are sweet, bean factories are salty,
rice warehouses smell fragrant, and mice are fat.
Shadows between the wooden stakes are quiet.
Birds on the electric power lines are black.
Bicycles travel a long way.
1
Under a cherry tree, there was a small vegetable patch.
Is it still green but unkempt?
There are turtledoves, mountain rabbits, mountain eagles,
owls, slugs, and wood beetles. And fish in the pond.
And flying saucers
that fly across from the mountains from time to time
bringing suspicious light mixed with fragments of dreams.
And the gecko that used to practice climbing hills
on my window screens
finally falls one day into my liquor jar.
2
And more villains fall over the terraced ridge.
Spring rain falls like cooking oil.
He falls ill. When he finally wakes up,
he digs fishy smelling herbs to treat his ear.
A barefoot doctor walks over the loamy soil.
When he hurts his sole,
a bone-shaped mushroom wakes up.
On the mulberry tree, empty lungs hang in the wind.
The jade-green of Spring glissades through the lungs
into the heart and shoots out with buds and sprouts.
The Bronze Man* grows messy hair this way,
his scalp cool and clean, his eyes bright.
The village is small with terraced rice paddies,
everything so clear you can see right through your life.
He looks at Spring in detail, a bucket of well-water,
a basket of mulberry leaves, a tree full of cherries,
cool rain with clear threads of rain water.
*The ancient Chinese poet Li He (790–816) had a well-known poem about the Bronze Man made by Han Emperor Wudi (156-87 BCE) to catch the dew from the moon as an elixir of immortality. (Translator’s note)
3
He tries to learn witchcraft and observes
what the village masters do.
His uncle chants curses while drinking.
He spits well-water at his youngest son,
the one with the broken legs.
The water sprays like tobacco smoke.
The broken legs immediately become wings or wheels
flying around the courtyard.
And the little rebel soon dashes away without a trace.
Still his uncle is not satisfied.
He spits saliva in the yard. His neighbors are cooking lunch
but by dinner time their lunch is still not ready –
raw rice in the wok, which makes him happy.
He drinks his liquor, contented.
4
He drinks water by the river and swallows
a few small fish. Like a cup he is filling himself
with clear water. No, like a human-shaped fish tank
he is changing water, transparent.
A small fish swims through the bloody water plants
inside his lungs. A tadpole is waiting
to grow four groundless legs. Like a tadpole,
he expects all aquatic creatures to grow into women.
He would like to take turns living in their bodies,
one at a time, like the Grass Monk.* He would swim serenely
between the warm bodies remembering each of them.
And they would continue to submerge, their fins sweeping
the shallow bottom without knowing that the secret fun
is speeding them up – to the blue clouds.
*Grass Monk is an erotic character from the Qing dynasty novel Strange Stories by Pu Songling (1640-1715). (Translator’s note)
5
He sets up a theater group on the grass stage
to put on a Sichuan Opera. His face motionless.*
A high-pitch voice comes from behind the scene,
thin and sharp, trickier than an embroidery needle.
His body moves so light, like air, you can catch a glimpse
of him only when the light changes: a floating shadow.
Indeed he is so light, almost not touching the floor.
Only the beautiful females can hold his flickering
and his gaze. In this season who is the spectator?
Well, his slim body performs somersaults like the Monkey King.
Even the prodigal Yanqing in the Water Margin fiction
was no better than this.
* Sichuan opera is one of the oldest forms of performing art in China that revived in the 20th century. The main feature is “face changing” where the actors change their masks quickly like a magic. (Translator’s note)
6
He passes by blacksmith shops, white metals flash.
He himself is a metal shop collecting all the light,
brighter than the sun.
He slops on wooden clogs, slovenly. Wandering alone,
he crowds the entire market.
He wants to indulge in money and harden his heart,
not shedding tears in front of coffins.
Coffins are just containers for rice, in different shapes.
Tears can shine and polish the coffins.
He crosses mountains and waters with a rice container.
He collects the rent or corpses.
He has traveled all over Mt. Fang and Mt. Qi
like a Mr. Geography chasing ghosts.
7
He used to have clean lungs and his quiet breathing
could turn windmills over the water’s surface.
Now weeds have grown and filled his lungs.
His body rusts like a rusty sickle that cuts weeds.
His field of happiness lies beyond, on the hillside
temple of a female Buddha who is still single.
Clay heart and clay lungs in a clay body.
How far is it from the real body?
Even the harvest fails to arouse his ancient desire.
Yeah, the field after harvest teems with the parched cry
of crickets.
8
This is the profound knowledge of the game:
Listen to the sound of the reed, pay attention
to the yo-yo’s spellbound spinning, jump with two feet
to get the tricky Feng Shui when practicing hopscotch,
or claim to be a wooden puppet without a string attached.
Time is concealed in the middle of all of these.
Now he’s holding a searchlight to find them.
Time resurfaces from there –
it exposes their texture under the spotlight,
not worn out yet,
while the hand that holds the string in the shadow
awaits his return.
Turn around and look back,
yesterday remains there, waiting for him on his porch.
His folks are kneading lard into white sponge cakes.
9
Right now he’s wearing a pagoda-shaped cap,
his feet on peg stilts. He crosses overhead
like a cloud and reaches the cool bridge.
I look up to see the split crotch of his pants,
and I can hear his balls bursting chaos.
At this moment he has returned to me on a paper kite.
I chase his sliding shadow.
When he flies over the wall, I climb up the cloud ladder
and sit down on top of the flagpole. I touch
the long bird-tail of his shirt. I guess
he is holding an embroidered portrait of master Luban.*
And so he walks into the clouds, just like that,
and sees the sunset feasting in the distant mountains.
Other people have also witnessed this grand moment:
“A sunny bird quivers
flying over the Mu Rivers.
On a twig of flowers
it catches the sunset hours.”
* Luban (c. 507–444 BCE) was an ancient Chinese carpenter and inventor, revered as the Chinese God of carpentry. He invented the cloud ladder and wooden bird. (Translator’s note)
0
Now it’s March again, many years afterwards.
He is no longer sentimental about Spring,
or getting sick on liquor. Things have changed.
He can no longer hear the flowering language of plants.
His mind is a wedge of pig iron,
nothing knocks to wake it up. His Spring is outside
of his body, in another life
that not even his afterlife can reach.
One March sometime in the past,
he sang in a silent voice, faint but clear, as if
even people from as far away as the horizon could hear.
Sometimes he focused on things unnoticed by others,
small joys, voices of orioles, crickets and showers of rain.
He kept silent for them. It was that Spring
that he faced Mt. Qi, the fairytale land.
His body was a garden.
© 2017, Ming Di and Kerry Shawn Keys
➀ The cited four lines are from a Guizhou folk song, except that the original “Wu Rivers” is replaced by “Mu Rivers”.
Muchuan County Chronicle: The Book of People or Rural Affairs in the Southern Basin
0Standing under the gray clouds, on a grayer roof,
he holds a lightning rod and takes a bird’s-eye view
of his rainy Muchuan County:
candy factories are sweet, bean factories are salty,
rice warehouses smell fragrant, and mice are fat.
Shadows between the wooden stakes are quiet.
Birds on the electric power lines are black.
Bicycles travel a long way.
1
Under a cherry tree, there was a small vegetable patch.
Is it still green but unkempt?
There are turtledoves, mountain rabbits, mountain eagles,
owls, slugs, and wood beetles. And fish in the pond.
And flying saucers
that fly across from the mountains from time to time
bringing suspicious light mixed with fragments of dreams.
And the gecko that used to practice climbing hills
on my window screens
finally falls one day into my liquor jar.
2
And more villains fall over the terraced ridge.
Spring rain falls like cooking oil.
He falls ill. When he finally wakes up,
he digs fishy smelling herbs to treat his ear.
A barefoot doctor walks over the loamy soil.
When he hurts his sole,
a bone-shaped mushroom wakes up.
On the mulberry tree, empty lungs hang in the wind.
The jade-green of Spring glissades through the lungs
into the heart and shoots out with buds and sprouts.
The Bronze Man* grows messy hair this way,
his scalp cool and clean, his eyes bright.
The village is small with terraced rice paddies,
everything so clear you can see right through your life.
He looks at Spring in detail, a bucket of well-water,
a basket of mulberry leaves, a tree full of cherries,
cool rain with clear threads of rain water.
*The ancient Chinese poet Li He (790–816) had a well-known poem about the Bronze Man made by Han Emperor Wudi (156-87 BCE) to catch the dew from the moon as an elixir of immortality. (Translator’s note)
3
He tries to learn witchcraft and observes
what the village masters do.
His uncle chants curses while drinking.
He spits well-water at his youngest son,
the one with the broken legs.
The water sprays like tobacco smoke.
The broken legs immediately become wings or wheels
flying around the courtyard.
And the little rebel soon dashes away without a trace.
Still his uncle is not satisfied.
He spits saliva in the yard. His neighbors are cooking lunch
but by dinner time their lunch is still not ready –
raw rice in the wok, which makes him happy.
He drinks his liquor, contented.
4
He drinks water by the river and swallows
a few small fish. Like a cup he is filling himself
with clear water. No, like a human-shaped fish tank
he is changing water, transparent.
A small fish swims through the bloody water plants
inside his lungs. A tadpole is waiting
to grow four groundless legs. Like a tadpole,
he expects all aquatic creatures to grow into women.
He would like to take turns living in their bodies,
one at a time, like the Grass Monk.* He would swim serenely
between the warm bodies remembering each of them.
And they would continue to submerge, their fins sweeping
the shallow bottom without knowing that the secret fun
is speeding them up – to the blue clouds.
*Grass Monk is an erotic character from the Qing dynasty novel Strange Stories by Pu Songling (1640-1715). (Translator’s note)
5
He sets up a theater group on the grass stage
to put on a Sichuan Opera. His face motionless.*
A high-pitch voice comes from behind the scene,
thin and sharp, trickier than an embroidery needle.
His body moves so light, like air, you can catch a glimpse
of him only when the light changes: a floating shadow.
Indeed he is so light, almost not touching the floor.
Only the beautiful females can hold his flickering
and his gaze. In this season who is the spectator?
Well, his slim body performs somersaults like the Monkey King.
Even the prodigal Yanqing in the Water Margin fiction
was no better than this.
* Sichuan opera is one of the oldest forms of performing art in China that revived in the 20th century. The main feature is “face changing” where the actors change their masks quickly like a magic. (Translator’s note)
6
He passes by blacksmith shops, white metals flash.
He himself is a metal shop collecting all the light,
brighter than the sun.
He slops on wooden clogs, slovenly. Wandering alone,
he crowds the entire market.
He wants to indulge in money and harden his heart,
not shedding tears in front of coffins.
Coffins are just containers for rice, in different shapes.
Tears can shine and polish the coffins.
He crosses mountains and waters with a rice container.
He collects the rent or corpses.
He has traveled all over Mt. Fang and Mt. Qi
like a Mr. Geography chasing ghosts.
7
He used to have clean lungs and his quiet breathing
could turn windmills over the water’s surface.
Now weeds have grown and filled his lungs.
His body rusts like a rusty sickle that cuts weeds.
His field of happiness lies beyond, on the hillside
temple of a female Buddha who is still single.
Clay heart and clay lungs in a clay body.
How far is it from the real body?
Even the harvest fails to arouse his ancient desire.
Yeah, the field after harvest teems with the parched cry
of crickets.
8
This is the profound knowledge of the game:
Listen to the sound of the reed, pay attention
to the yo-yo’s spellbound spinning, jump with two feet
to get the tricky Feng Shui when practicing hopscotch,
or claim to be a wooden puppet without a string attached.
Time is concealed in the middle of all of these.
Now he’s holding a searchlight to find them.
Time resurfaces from there –
it exposes their texture under the spotlight,
not worn out yet,
while the hand that holds the string in the shadow
awaits his return.
Turn around and look back,
yesterday remains there, waiting for him on his porch.
His folks are kneading lard into white sponge cakes.
9
Right now he’s wearing a pagoda-shaped cap,
his feet on peg stilts. He crosses overhead
like a cloud and reaches the cool bridge.
I look up to see the split crotch of his pants,
and I can hear his balls bursting chaos.
At this moment he has returned to me on a paper kite.
I chase his sliding shadow.
When he flies over the wall, I climb up the cloud ladder
and sit down on top of the flagpole. I touch
the long bird-tail of his shirt. I guess
he is holding an embroidered portrait of master Luban.*
And so he walks into the clouds, just like that,
and sees the sunset feasting in the distant mountains.
Other people have also witnessed this grand moment:
“A sunny bird quivers
flying over the Mu Rivers.
On a twig of flowers
it catches the sunset hours.”
* Luban (c. 507–444 BCE) was an ancient Chinese carpenter and inventor, revered as the Chinese God of carpentry. He invented the cloud ladder and wooden bird. (Translator’s note)
0
Now it’s March again, many years afterwards.
He is no longer sentimental about Spring,
or getting sick on liquor. Things have changed.
He can no longer hear the flowering language of plants.
His mind is a wedge of pig iron,
nothing knocks to wake it up. His Spring is outside
of his body, in another life
that not even his afterlife can reach.
One March sometime in the past,
he sang in a silent voice, faint but clear, as if
even people from as far away as the horizon could hear.
Sometimes he focused on things unnoticed by others,
small joys, voices of orioles, crickets and showers of rain.
He kept silent for them. It was that Spring
that he faced Mt. Qi, the fairytale land.
His body was a garden.
© 2017, Ming Di and Kerry Shawn Keys
➀ The cited four lines are from a Guizhou folk song, except that the original “Wu Rivers” is replaced by “Mu Rivers”.
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