A Lü De'an Poem

Mountains' Ecstasy

this endless range of mountains holds all of our music:

a resplendent and motionless tree
a patch of azure-intersticed cloud
an incinerated plummeting angel
its bird-wings be will liquidized, dripping on
jumbled stone heaps. therefore
we can all listen to the surging of the summits after dark,
a black and blurred dark mass
come daytime, they're back in their places, listening for orders
we can all listen to boulders borne on the mountaintops breeding
giving off starlight, while for thousands of years
that massive rock weighted down underneath mountains
looks in the gloom like some capsized earthen jar
with just the right amount of water trickling over it—
satisfying time. and yet before you know it
all these objects will be turned to nothingness.
then that music we all tried so hard to find will vanish
we will all once again lie down together
accepting dream's touching
she cares for our bodies
wanting to bear us back to the cradle
for boulders that happen to roll down from the mountains
she knows appropriate prayers to make them roll back
once more mountainwards
restored to their stony nature, o stones
we hear you: stay where you are—
this you and me of springtime

Trans. Simon Patton (2003)