An Obscure Place

The history of our race 
begins with the place of stories.
We do not know if the language we speak
belongs to a written past.
Nothing is certain.

There are mountains. Oh! There are mountains.
We climbed every slope. We slept by the river.

But do not speak of victory yet.

An obscure place haunts the hunter.
The prize slips away.
Yesterday the women hid their faces.
They forbade their children to speak. 
Yesterday we gave shelter to men 
who climbed over our hills 
for glory of a homeland, they said-
those who know what knowing is,
And now the sleeping houses, the men and the villages 
have turned to stone.

If there is no death the news is silent.
If there is only silence, we should be disturbed

Listen, the tone of a prayer is hushed:

If a stranger passes this way
let him look up to the sky.
A smoke cloud chases the ants.
See! They have slain the wild cat
and buried the hornbill in her maternal sleep. 

The words of strangers have led us
into a mist deeper than the one we left behind
weeping, like the waving grassland
where the bones of our fathers are buried
surrounded by thoughts of beauty.

There are mountains. Oh! There are mountains.
We climbed every slope. We slept by the river.

But do not speak of victory yet! 

The Voice of the Mountain

From where I sit on the high platform
I can see the ferry lights crossing
criss-crossing the big river.

I know the towns, the estuary mouth.
There, beyond the last bank 
where the colour drains from heaven
I can outline the chapters of the world.

The other day a young man arrived from the village.
Because he could not speak
he brought a gift of fish
from the land of rivers.
It seems such acts are repeated:
We live in territories forever ancient and new,
and as we speak in changing languages
I, also, leave my spear leaning by the tree
and try to make a sign.

I am an old man sipping the breeze
that is forever young.
In my life I have lived many lives.
My voice is sea waves and mountain peaks,
In the transfer of symbols 
I am the chance syllable that orders the world
Instructed with history and miracles.

I am the desert and the rain.
The wild bird that sits in the west.
The past that recreates itself
and particles of life that clutch and cling 
For thousands of years –
I know, I know these things 
as rocks know, burning in the sun’s embrace,
about clouds, and sudden rain;
as I know a cloud is a cloud is a cloud,
A cloud is this uncertain pulse
that sits over my heart.

In the end the universe yields nothing
except a dream of permanence.
Peace is a falsity.
A moment of rest comes after long combat:

From the east the warrior returns 
with the blood of peonies.
I am the child who died at the edge of the world,
the distance between end and hope.
The star diagram that fell from the sky,
The summer that makes men weep.
I am the woman lost in translation
who survives, with happiness to carry on.

I am the breath that opens the mouth of the canyon,
the sunlight on the tips of trees;
There, where the narrow gorge hastens the wind
I am the place where memory escapes 
the myth of time,
I am the sleep in the mind of the mountain. 

Green in the Time of Flood

It was the green land that seduced us.
The scent of rain 
and the river that found us, quite suddenly
one summer, restored to one another.

Time is a miracle when a season gives everything.
The river swallows whole islands,
a swelter of pond lilies, and drowning fields of emerald,
yet ferries us on a map of sand
where the desert and the river are the same.

Time is a miracle where the colour green is wrapped
in the stillness of waiting 
like the birth of days
before time, 
and every night the rain cloud descends,
yet the meaning of words is dancing before our eyes
in the mysterious fire of a single flame
lit from the fire of your hands.

It is the green land that seduces us.
Where the creased hills are standing
in their indescribable blue armour
measuring distance, moments, days,
I stake my claim 
to peppermint and green fruit, 
the life of growing things,
and a slice of moon across the world 
where the banks slip away
and a new boundary marks our nights and our days.

Small Towns and the River

Small towns always remind me of death.
My hometown lies calmly amidst the trees,
it is always the same, 
in the summer or winter
with the dust flying,
or the wind howling down the gorge

Just the other day someone died.
In the dreadful silence we wept
looking at the sad wreath of tuber rose.
Life and death, life and death,
only the rituals are permanent

The river has a soul.
In the summer it cuts through the land
like a torrent of grief. Sometimes
sometimes, I think it holds its breath
seeking the land of fish and stars

The river has a soul.
It knows, stretching past the town,
from the first drop of rain to dry earth
and mist on the mountaintops,
the river knows
the immortality of water

A shrine of happy pictures
marks the days of childhood.
Small towns grow with anxiety
for future generations.
The dead are placed pointing west.
When the soul rises
it will walk into the golden east,
into the house of the sun

In the cool bamboo,
restored in the sunlight,
life matters, like this.

In small towns by the river
we all want to walk with the gods.

Birthplace

We are the children of the rain
of the cloud woman,
brother to the stone and bat
in our cradle of bamboo and vine
in our long houses we slept,
and when morning came
we were refreshed.

There were no strangers 
In our valley.
Recognition was instant
as clan by clan we grew,
and destiny was simple
like a green shoot
following direction
like the sun and moon.

The first drop of water
gave birth to man.
From red sheath
to green stem
and the spreading wind:

We descend
from solitude and miracles.

How Things Might Have Been Different 

The jewels of the universe.
The spotless sky.
We form attachments,
others grow attached to us,
The days go by 
wondering about these things

Now, if anyone asks me 
What has loving taught you,
What will I say?

I know, in the early sunshine
In the middle of a simple happiness
You will remember me.
These are the golden steps we climbed:
For every lifetime 
A sky lantern
Shining in the centre of the universe

In your face that bears no memory of a past
I see the lines of destiny
Fragile, tenuous.
In your words 
That speak only of meaning and focus
I hear only love songs.