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Lo Fu 洛夫
BACK TOWARD THE SEA— an overnight stay at Henan Temple
背向大海——夜宿和南寺
Translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機
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A monk’s robe, broad and empty
Raised high
Covers the whole of Henan Temple
Ahead, not far away
The vast sea, oblivious of its own safety
Courageously tilts toward the tile-gray sky
The tapping of the wooden fish, the tolling bell
Mixed with the swoosh of the tide
Break the silence
As if one saw many faces
Turn suddenly on the street
To face the sea
The dying sun lacquers my spine into
The shadow of a mountain
Eyes, ears, nose, tongue, hair, skin
Two hands, two feet
As well as so-called feeling, cognition,
formation, and consciousness
Are all nothing
Extinguished in the deep blue roar of the waves
My non-existence stems
From my having existed
Dull as a drop of water
But with the knowledge that
A sea is hidden deep within me
And as I turn
My back to the sea
I discover
Soaked to the bone as I am
Emerging from the sharp toll of the bell
A huge shadow
Coming ashore in a flurry
With the dull scratching shuffle
Of a multitude of sea turtles
On my heels
A huge
Blue teardrop
I turn and grasp the setting sun and say
I want to sink away with you
The warmth of the setting sun lingers yet
The stones linger yet
The fire and embers in the stones
Remain. On the beach
A pair of straw sandals lingers yet
Hesitating, hesitating, hesitating to journey
To the far corners of the earth until
One steps out of one’s own shadow
The first footprint
A kind of desire
The second footprint
A dumfounded cry
The third footprint
A moment of silence
The forth footprint
Some regret
The fifth footprint
Nearly forgotten
The sixth footprint
A self lost in time
The distant toll of the bell
Once again overflows the bones
Resounding in a
Colder and more distant
Lamplight that cannot be fathomed
Who knows when
A sacred text was discovered hidden in a stone
The flame of wisdom that cannot be
Extinguished by the entire sea
Brewing the beauty of a city hurriedly set afire
My back to the sea
I cock my ears and listen
As the wooden fish of Henan Temple blows its gloomy foam
The scene behind my back gradually widens
The monsoon raises
Wrinkles on the face of the sea
I lie flat on a huge boulder
Then from my chest I scoop
Handful after handful of blue
Smear it on the sky
Other than our scaly bodies,
The schools of fish and I
Possess nothing but a tonsure
And melancholy is but the final rest in the third movement
Oh, that the world has such a perfect mortise
My head
Was just tightly topped with a solitary tail
A deconstructive version
Mainly to express the hopelessness
After the blue of the sea fully saturates
My back to the sea
I have no sooner turned my face away
Than the setting sun sinks through the sound of the wooden fish
Falling toward a future where no echo is heard
Tomorrow may bring fortune or disaster
I fear that even the tombstone suddenly appearing before me
Knows no more. Enough
What’s important is
Will the wooden fish break as it is tapped?
If it should break
That, too, is a form of tapping
If it should not break
That, too, is a form of tapping
Tapped or not
Everything must break
But broken does not necessarily mean empty
And if it’s empty why must it break?
The sea empties
The blue follows suit
The clouds and fog are empty the moment they appear
The setting sun is the day’s final emptiness
My eyes
Were originally an empty barrow
Left behind by a prehistoric culture
Buried inside is an unknown
But prophetic sea
A docile beast
The moment I turn away, my back to the sea
I slyly watch and wait for its calm
But am unmoved by its readiness to stir up trouble
Busy or not, it never fails to howl at the void
Demanding that I pursue the light today and embrace
loneliness tomorrow
Suddenly the face of the sea is covered in darkness
Startled, like a water spider I hesitate to go forward
Convinced though my heart is as bright as a lamp
Actually it is the starlight chiseling out my transparency
And the sea merely makes me think of the ship run aground and
The deck and cables held by the moonlight till mouth is
parched and tongue is scorched
The compass at the bottom of the sea still
Points chaotically
East
West
South
North
At this moment, the sliver of the moon has just risen
The tranquility of the sea witnesses
The absurdity of the storm, the illusion of the rainbow
And its own immature rebellion
But the sea still has its destiny, and I my helplessness
When there is not the slightest choice I discover
A grain of salt begins to seek among the waves
For the bitterness prior to becoming salty
Existence precedes essence
Bitterness always comes before tears
And tears
Before the eyes
My back to the sea
The bell at Henan Temple tolls once more . . . |
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