Taking a Stroll Poem by Yang Lian

Can goldfish in water sing of a city's rise and decline? A row of swans poke into their feathers by the river Are they making portraits of girls holding mirrors to themselves? The sound of the wind fills his strolling self Led in the dark by a road Arriving at the marsh his feet sink down an inch Green spills over the embankment aware of the inevitability of winter A bout of rain makes the smashed knees of grasses kneel everywhere A cloud creates an eclipse He sees in the distant horizon the flickering of light and dark Multiplying that night a wild goose called all night Arriving at this forgotten memory Gives the feeling of being gently swallowed Gives the feeling of becoming the valley a withered willow Exploding gold colours eject a womb that keeps giving birth to the sky Listen to the wooden fence roaring in the wind The days can only be fenced in by being nailed to death Reaching the sogginess of water and blood Drowning awaits future of café chatter Locking the door a city full of him holding cups that have gone cold Like a breath that has been planted Walking on buried in the skeleton of the old iron bridge Unable to go further a big clump of dark red rusted bushes Forces itself into a window sunlight malevolently bursts forth Revealing the dank water level that has taken residence on his head Strangled scenery appears Dismantled in the darkness Solitarily hanging stairs appea