Earth-Seed (By Liang Yuan) Poem by Denis Mair
Earth-Seed (By Liang Yuan)
by Liang Yuan
(translated by Denis Mair)
The earth is a revolving seed
It is a green, unicellular being
That overswells itself, to become a fruit
Over time duality resolves into unity:
Not only a seed but also a fruit
As for the fruit tree at the middle stage
And everything that happened beneath that tree
We have no way to know, but can only look
Into stories of Eden and the Flood
To be dimly aware of previous lives
Of course, there are various images of the earth
Provided by other kinds of crystal balls
Excuse me for not enumerating them here
We have never ceased our QUESTIONS TO HEAVEN [1]
And our QUESTIONS TO EARTH, and to ourselves
In fact, in the way the earth spins
And in its marvels of inner and outer gravity
We can infer answers to the following questions:
Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?
The task we have in hand
Is to prevent this seed
From growing into a bomb
And to keep the black road that acts as its fuse
From igniting it hatefully
[1] QUESTIONS TO HEAVEN was a long poem written as a mythological, cosmological catechism by Qu Yuan, who is the first Chinese poet known by name. He was a courtier and statesman in the state of Chu during the late Zhou Dynasty.
i believe there was a book decades ago called 'The Population Bomb' **. YOU have not mentioned hate as Madathil did in his poem comment. a 'bomb' may not have a real fuse in order to explode, and consequently cause immense upset/damage/woe to the humans and others inhabiting the Earth! ! ! ! **yes, Google to see a Wikipedia article about the book; the article is very interesting (to me anyway) and i recommend reading it. (cont.)
Although my exposure to Chinese literature is much much limited, the depth of whatever I have read of them has always fascinated me. May be because their thinking is collateral to that of Indian philosophers. Both had been asking almost the same questions to heavens and were arriving at similar answers. I join the poet in his entreaty that the earth seed doesn't turn into a bomb of hate. Your translation is excellent, Sir. (10)
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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9/23/2024 9:37:44 PM # 1.0.0.1119
(cont.) ok, so you ONLY TRANSLATED some other guy's poem! but i'll still send to MyPoemList. perhaps you could include original texts when you submit a translation, AND a note about the 'other' poet. i assume the (original) author has no active copyright: i could not find the poet (quickly enough for me) by Googling do i quit looking, but i suspect he lived around the 1500s. bri :)