Stone

1

Sole original presence   molten fluid from a huge fire

Within the body of the world   swirling in currents of lava

Stone is the totality of mineral matter

The awkward skeleton of planet earth

Omnipresent

Devastation forced stone to give birth to stone

Heaping millions of huge stones into towering ranges

Fragmenting big stones into countless pebbles

In loose dirt it takes another form

Dao gives birth to one   One gives birth to two   Two gives birth to three  

Three to myriads of things

Cobblestones and cicadas and toadstools

2

Poems are nothing but sentences constructed of stone

A struck flint shoots a star-like spark

Civilization spreads like a grassfire   once started it won’t stop

An infant goes down a road paved with stones   heading toward a grave

Megaliths watch over the land’s hard-bitten silence

Time is surrounded on all sides

Stone foundation, stone wall, stone pillar

People are poetically dwelling   stones feel nothing within

Conspiring with the remote past, cement is a modern mutation of stone

And cremated remains of stone are used to whitewash walls

Wavering at the edge of birth and death   existing for the sake of existence

3

The greatest adventure is to go inside a stone

Like dinosaurs of the Cretaceous period

Handing themselves over to custodians of eternity

Once it has swum into a solidified sea, a fish’s swishing tail

Is the most deceitful treatment of life

Stone possessing beauty is jade   in the Orient rivalling the superior man’s dignity

Collect a stone only when struck by its presence   be a connoisseur of stones   to nurture your spirit

Relish the feel of mountains and valleys in the palm of your hand

Soil of the native land

Depends upon the heart’s Gibraltar

Gem-like words   emerge from a swarthy inkstone   carved in grotesque designs

With apparent murkiness it gives utterance

To the cleansing of a soul

4

A basalt cave is the uterus of creation

Scenery is born from stone   craggy terrain is the appearance of stone

The appeal of landscape lies in ugliness of stone   great obduracy is wisdom

In the blackest crags   bleakness lifts its bracingly bleak face

Off to the side of time   shoals seem to gaze out to sea

Insinuating teeth of wind   undistracted tongue of waves

By long attrition   gnaw a pitted beauty into shape

There is bewitchment in being utterly shattered

What they call “Ocean Corner, Edge of Sky”   is nothing but a pile of stones [1]

[1] “Ocean Corner, Edge of Sky” (Tianya-haijiao) is the name of a rock formation in Sanya City, Hainan Province. Numerous boulders are strewn along the beach, all of them dramatically contorted in shape.

 Written in 2012

Translated by Denis Mair