I’ve been here many times before…
taking a taxi, arriving at four in the morning,
leaving at the noisy hour of ten, through crowds and rotting leaves
The sky is still dark. No one greets me,
no one tells me I’ve come too early
I can’t find a place to settle
I’ve walked both banks of the canal
the narrow alleys, shopfronts with or without people, I’ve walked them all
Alright. I’ll return again from that nameless path
to the broad street with its arching gate. Morning trembles amid the clamor
The thought of doubleing back the way
always makes me pause in hesitation
These plastic bags, foam boxes, the cramped cages crowded with
chickens, ducks, and geese, the basins dipped from the river,
I’ve seen them all. Many living things
have died this morning. I too have touched the water.
The vendors of vegetables and fish still sit on the ground,
watching me from the roadside,
for they know I will soon be gone again
The method of digging through water and soil
The method daring to make the sun and the moon shine in the new sky
The most immediate, effective method of building the new countryside
Like the vacant slots on a Lego baseplate, beside
neat rows of houses: a basketball hoop,
a court, a multicolored ground; wating for tiny figures to be placed
When the earth is still covered in materials,
dust, and knots of souls;
The method of installing pit latrines and flush toilets under the open sky
Within the square and hollow cube,
the bright and upright methods
The method of renewal, the method of returning to garden and field
To dwell or to abandon, clangs and clatters,
methods hard to articulate, yet surely
exist between the gaps of Chinese characters,
disappearing into habitual forgetting
Referred to by the three exposed red characters, Method Department,
a tin house with pink roof and white walls,
so light, yet holding infinite power of ruin,
casually breaking the rusted soil and iron,
moving anywhere it pleases; a dreadful thing upon the earth
When you walk deep into the fields
you’ll notice the gaze of poultry
Dogs, large and small, emerge from doorways
followed by the elderly, and then those growing old
No one gets any closer
Creatures seem to have been instructed since birth: be silent
And this river doesn’t belong to anyone either
The unnamed ancient bridges, the unnamed rivers
the entire village named after the big local lake,
might not be much different
The earth grayish-white ––
when we’re about to return along the same path
an old woman approaches, heading home
looking us over as she walks
She smiles while asking where we came from
talking about the rare visitors here
And then points into the distance,
saying whose land this is, whose graves these are