An Untended Stretch Of The Great Wall (Zhu Zhu) Poem by Denis Mair

by Zhu Zhu
(translated by Denis Mair)

I
A label on the face of the globe, or an imprint
Deep in memory, fades in these ranged mountains
Weathered by sandstorm and drought
To a color much like our skin.

We were here once. Even a young soldier
Conscripted from a little village
Would stand tall with pride of the advantaged
And size up outlanders through an arrow port,
No more than beasts crawling over the barrens.

In this land we have set up a giant bath
To soak ourselves in warm and languid routine;
As women play on a swing-set in the yard
Men's eyes love to seek out waterborne reflections.

Rare and bloody meat is too uncouth
The roofline of our civilization
Is precisely at the upturned eave-tip.

II
Among types of ruination...now is time to undergo
The most thorough
Which is forgetting, which is like

The spine of a reptile being weathered
To its final vestiges.
This ridge-spine is filled with Jurassic stillness
Now smoothed over by distant motors at sunset;
A rusty arrowhead of remnant light sinks down.

I'm here to trace the life that vanished before our birth
Like fingers of philology tapping lamely
At the edge of an empty skull
The insides long ago scooped dry.

III
In a few peach trees on the steep slope
Honeybees hum about their business
They have established a base
In one of the beacon towers nearby
Which has been smashed like crockery.

The lyrics they hum mean something like
"It all goes back to nature."

Wild grass like fingers from deep in the land
Resembles a surging, spear-wielding army of wraiths
Climbing onto the buckling steps.
At such a time, countless frightened landscapes
Must feel like leaping from museum walls, to flee in panic.