THE BOOKS OF CHAOTIC CLOUDS Poem by ZANG DI

Flying, they are flying, but they don't seem to be.
No one knows where the other shore is for them.
Nobody's really there? Then, can they borrow
the other shore from us? No one can decide?
Or perhaps, in our sleep
they are flying to us, toward us,
closer and closer, as if there's never a faraway
that's really far away from us. Our dreams
absorb the beautiful clouds into our bodies.
We have great sucking power, we didn't know.
They have great appearance, they didn't know
where the nicely-formed but useless boundary lay.
We thought dreams were boundaries,
but didn't know they were like holes, profound attractions.
Or, dreams are holes,
closer to holes than holes, more like holes than holes;
with white glares sometimes, more often with black mysteries.
Dreams work with holes. With or without color,
you say what you say doesn't count, it's no use.
To honor reality, we are the objects of dreams.
To honor cosmos, we are the exceptions of dreams.
To honor poetry, we are the beginnings of dreams.

—for Nieguang You