REMEMBERING

Words! before you led me to destruction

the guava seed was a clean hand

prodding me to get on my way

I've torn the skins of things, like crushing grapes

My heart spread its wings

hovered in the round heart of the wine

Men's faces, then, stood in oil

Had I ever used the word detest ?

My mouth is a horse's mouth

—language my hay, dried in sun and air

The feet of birds are buried under the hay

lizards on one side building a nest

Talking about them causes me an

animal pain that pierces my heart

takes my hand, places it on the word

to find the spot from which feelers sprout

Childhood! My poems a clean house

the fields a ball rolling

Mother's two baskets on a pole across her shoulder

Over emerald leaves, rivers rush on

Had I ever worn the anxious look I wear now?

Make my poems a rag to wipe with—wash here, wash there

Make grating sounds—wrench here, wrench there

Throw the books on the floor

From a snowy sky remote from humanity

snowflakes striking become soundless tears

Had I ever tried to praise beauty?

My entire body glittering quicksilver

my first song was in my youth

My teeth shone then like the horns of a fawn

in the pride of life, my smile unhidden

I walked then

like water drawn from a well

Remembering! this conch shell

Golden yellow makes me see

the flesh that quivers within life

Sound of stones contracting

The sound of flesh

Waves washing over strands of sinew

The drowned become shells

and in my breathing speak their understanding

of a world that follows after death

Vengeance on the living, through silent sounds

Remember! trees felled and dry and rotten

Ants on a stump

crawling in a ring

Light encircles you

People--in moving forward, they fall

into the deepest dark. The most

radical among them try hardest to look out

drawing nearer, day by day, unfeeling flesh

Seeking that conch

we are still children

laughing at the sky

Words! before you lead me to destruction

I want to see clearly your real shape

Living among people, I am

a wolf, not yet grown into exile

avoiding the traps of words, of phrases

All around me, throats steeped in venom

swaying in the barrens! The four seasons

hide within men's eyes

revealing the spots of the leopard

My heart, how can you not press your lips

to patches of sunlight in the mud?

How can you not wail for an animal?

An infant rises before me

flexes four limbs, cries

Earth glitters, not yet fouled by men

Then how can I not sing?

One after another my poems

make the sound of chains shaken

one of my legs crushed by the crowd

my cry of indignation and despair

Crack the world to its core, you'll find a poem

Standing in the presence of poetry

is all that can make my whole body tremble

Hearing insects make love

my blood gushes from poetry's heart

words tumbling over each other

clambering over light-beams in the wheat

Empty conch shell. Anxiety and respect

together forge a brain. Still in a woman's womb

love, gleaming gold from head to foot, rising

on this fluid, a hand takes hold of the ocean's horn

From the moment a melody called to me

life showed me the delicate bones of men

filled with a marrow of purest gold and

praised by poetry

Our ancestors appreciated in silence

the sharp shards of those bones

the trembling of these healthy beasts

at life's very center

Fields of flowers opened by light

My heart! Could you then pronounce

from your precious lips the filthy

word detest ?

XUE DI

trans by Iona Crook and Keith Waldrop

Last Updated: May 15, 2004