STONE FROM KATA TJUTA Poem by Yu Jian

here I am in a valley in Kata Tjuta

a famous Australian tourist destination

and standing alone in this nation's stone fortresses:

countless stones scattered everywhere

ochre-red earth aborigines like eggs laid by God knows what

tiny birds hidden inside to be hatched out one day

I'm imagining what kind of bird that might be I play around with

one of them right up until sunset's footsteps walk up to me

and I have to decide to take it with me or not there's something so cute about it

rolling it to one side it suddenly becomes clear to me that it looks even more

like its red-skinned neighbours sculpted heads scorched by the sun

arranged on a book-shelf, wouldn't that be best? this stone

lives over 6000 kilometres from where I live it would be one of a kind in China I decide

furtively skirting the warning signs stone hidden in my back-pack

back at the hotel I find I cannot sleep as if what I have brought back with me

is a ball of wild-fire its body unsuited to the shampoo smell of my room

in the middle of the night it broke through its shell I danced with a fever in my arms

tossing backwards and forwards I was thinking to myself how I could get it past Customs?

it was just a stone so why did I want to take it with me? why?

it wasn't gems lanolin beauty creme postage stamps no

a stone I just couldn't work it out was it because it looked like the local indigenous people

because it might have hatched out wings? could it perhaps

transform some McDonalds fat man in Customs momentarily

into a detective with a penchant for solving mysteries? unshakeably seeking out

the motive behind it? and connecting me with less savoury aspects of this world

for example with an out-of-date slave trader?

I really liked this stone primitive divine force how it moved me

everywhere you turn the world is artificial long ago I become numb insensitive

at the same time I was terrified that this slight act of theft may have offended

some King of the Rock among the stone heaps of Kata Tjuta

I couldn't shake the feeling of His power He was no manager of scenic spots

He collected no entrance tickets silent concealed but supreme ruler over all

sometimes an curly-headed aborigine with shining eyes

would smile at me, surreptitiously squatting down in the bush another time

I was startled by the sight of a scarred, motley lizard crawling down a tree-root

looking like an aged sovereign walking his royal carpet I was so scared I broke out in a cold sweat

in Australia like an emu I slept a night with a stone in my embrace

it made me suspicious of my own shadow I trembled with fear

I went and put it outside the hotel in a wasteland that is

another wasteland I had moved one small object on the surface of this planet

18 kilometres towards the south-west and in doing so

had sneakily altered the order of the world

but I hope my mischief brings me no misfortune