Bei Dao

a sower walks into the great hall it's war out there, he says and you awash in emptiness you've sworn off your duty to sound the alarm I've come in the name of fields it's war out there I walk out from that great hall all four directions a boundless harvest scene I start planning for war rehearsing death and the crops I burn send up the wolf-smoke of warning fires but something haunts me furiously: he's sowing seed across marble floors

for Shanshan The wave of that year flooded the sands on the mirror to be lost is a kind of leaving and the meaning of leaving the instant when all languages are like shadows cast from the west life's only a promise don't grieve for it before the garden was destroyed we had too much time debating the implications of a bird flying as we knocked down midnight's door alone like a match polished into light when childhood's tunnel led to a vein of dubious ore to be lost is a kind of leaving and poetry rectifying life rectifies poetry's echo

wolves of music weave their way at a run hawthorns wheeze with clandestine laughter turning a new leaf, tide's out young ship-captains high up on balconies look far away through telescopes east and west a single fruit cut into halves beneath a tree grown from the pit I once spit out I've hung nets to trap birds, and waited how many years

a child carrying flowers walks toward the new year a conductor tattooing darkness listens to the shortest pause hurry a lion into the cage of music hurry stone to masquerade as a recluse moving in parallel nights who's the visitor? when the days all tip from nests and fly down roads the book of failure grows boundless and deep each and every moment's a shortcut I follow it through the meaning of the East returning home, closing death's door

Lovers holding pits in their mouths make vows and delight in each other till the underwater infant periscopes his parents and is born an uninvited guest knocks at my door, determined to go deep into the interior of things the trees applaud wait a minute, the full moon and this plan are making me nervous my hand fluttering over the obscure implications of the letter let me sit in the dark a while longer, like sitting on a friend's heart the city a burning deck on the frozen sea can it be saved? it must be saved the faucet drip-drop drip-drop mourns the reservoir

The sound of a guitar drifts through the air. Cupped in my hand, a snowflake quivers lightly. Thick patches of fog draw back to reveal A mountain range, rolling like a melody. I have gathered the inheritance of the four seasons. There is no sign of man in the valley. Picked wild flowers continue to grow, Their flowering is their time of death. Along the path in the primordial wood Green sunlight flows through the slits. A russet hawk interprets into bird cries The mountain's tale of terror. Abruptly I cry out, "Hello, Bai—hua—Mountain." "Hello, my—child," comes the echo From a distant waterfall. It was a wind within a wind, drawing A restless response from the land, I whispered, and the snowflake Drifted from my hand down the abyss.

for Yu Luoke Perhaps the final hour is come I have left no testament Only a pen, for my mother I am no hero In an age without heroes I just want to be a man The still horizon Divides the ranks of the living and the dead I can only choose the sky I will not kneel on the ground Allowing the executioners to look tall The better to obstruct the wind of freedom From star-like bullet holes shall flow A blood-red dawn

I want to go to the other bank The river water alters the sky's colour and alters me I am in the current my shadow stands by the river bank like a tree struck by lightning I want to go to the other bank In the trees on the other bank a solitary startled wood pigeon flies towards me

in the end, cold crows piece together the night: a black map I've come home—the way back longer than the wrong road long as a life bring the heart of winter when spring water and horse pills become the words of night when memory barks a rainbow haunts the black market my father's life-spark small as a pea I am his echo turning the corner of encounters a former lover hides in a wind swirling with letters Beijing, let me toast your lamplights let my white hair lead the way through the black map as though a storm were taking you to fly I wait in line until the small window shuts: O the bright moon I go home—reunions are one less fewer than goodbyes

Debasement is the password of the base, Nobility the epitaph of the noble. See how the gilded sky is covered With the drifting twisted shadows of the dead. The Ice Age is over now, Why is there ice everywhere? The Cape of Good Hope has been discovered, Why do a thousand sails contest the Dead Sea? I came into this world Bringing only paper, rope, a shadow, To proclaim before the judgment The voice that has been judged: Let me tell you, world, I—do—not—believe! If a thousand challengers lie beneath your feet, Count me as number thousand and one. I don't believe the sky is blue; I don't believe in thunder's echoes; I don't believe that dreams are false; I don't believe that death has no revenge. If the sea is destined to breach the dikes Let all the brackish water pour into my heart; If the land is destined to rise Let humanity choose a peak for existence again. A new conjunction and glimmering stars Adorn the unobstructed sky now; They are the pictographs from five thousand years. They are the watchful eyes of future generations.