Someone is reading the menu
Someone is reading the bank book
Someone is repeatedly
reading a hand of cards
consisting of spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds
There are also others
who open a stack of medical records
and read some error-prone key words
I, looking in a mirror
Read myself
Having dealt with words
for over half my life
I always fail to figure out
what differences there are
between black characters on white paper
and reality
There always exist some people
who have read several baskets of books
before coming a cropper in the end
Often recalled by an urgent telegram
I
Folding a half-finished dream
Digging out the faded camouflage
From the bottom of the chest that is tightly locked by time
Carrying a rifle
Circling a few laps along the red line demarcated around the map
Stride across the Yalu River
Valiantly and full of mettle
Occasionally unveiling books
Sticking their heads out of
stories that have been meticulously cococted
Peeking at the world
A group of innate dumbs
can only resort to a piece of paper to live
A book
Be it thin or thick
is destined to become
their graves
Once upon a time
Food prepared in a large canteen cauldron
The order of the day for many years
All of a sudden
Became a mouse crossing the street
At which everybody yelled
Kill it; kill it
Ever since then
Everyone has pitched up small stoves
Over which some are stewing mutton
while others are boiling porridge
A span of a few years
Has witnessed
That the rich and the poor
Just like two trains rolling in opposite directions
Have pulled a cold track apart
Thoroughly old are books from front cover to back cover
Whose authors are either
alive or dead
Mixed and stacked together
Haggled and sold at a discount
Words once used repeatedly
have revived in the world
immediately people open books
Subjecting to no rules
Life has its own way
Birdsong is just a note on the string
Following their own wishes
Grass and trees will grow casually
The sun does its utmost to tend to every leaf
The stream bypasses the village
Turning around again and again
Reluctant to take a step forward
Like a spike becoming increasingly sharper with each cutting
The ray of sunshine pierces the dawn
My hometown has walked out of the story of spring sloppily
A gust of wind taking advantage of vulnerability
Steals some green fruits on the branch
Lightning rips the face of the night
The river props up a boat
For elopement
Erase the past
Erase the year of gengzi
Erase the month of May
Erase yesterday
Just let today stay
This is enough
I have never asked time to
find out what's going on tomorrow
Time has finally completed the work out of its conception
Making me what I am
Sitting alone in the sun
Like a statue made of clay
with my own shadow
Kneeling in front
In my inner world
There is a vast expanse of uncultivated land
Which nobody has reached
Yaks migrate carrying a load of fleecy clouds
Sunlight has scorched the gazing eyes
The Hoh Xil
Is still a few miles shy of the
breadth of solitude