Wednesday, February 9
JORGE LUIS BORGES IMAGINES CHINA
A sandglass. A second. Touch of the finest skin.
Jade of joy. An itch. Secrets in books you have read
sans a page number sans a punctuation mark.
Chapter of the sun. Chapter of the moon. Chapter of the sea.
A pantomime script. A palindrome poem by an anonymous
author more beautiful than a chandelier, a rotating brocade.
A lady-in-waiting advising the emperor on Night of Devotion.
A chapter from Erya or a hexagram couplet from I Ching.
Wounded feet and iron shoes of Yu the Great. Waters rushing.
Shu Hai walks barefoot to measure the world, as prototype of K.
(Kafka knows he will never reach the two poles.)
Two gates to Hangu Pass, on the table sits
the first version of Tao Te Ching, ink still wet.
Affluent vacuity. Return of disappearance.
A tear from an ancient mermaid drips into a pearl.
Li Shangyin writes an untitled poem to some Daoist lady.
An Argentinian ant climbs up Mount Tai.
Sailors row in unison on Jianzhen’s boat.
Matteo Ricci draws in Zhaoqing’s Map of World’s Kingdoms.
The Great Wall of China seen from a spacecraft.
An ancient coin symbolises round sky square earth.
The sound of snow falling on the Grand Bell of Yongle.
The opulence and decadence of oriental Venice in South-of-Yangtze.
Archaeologists’ tweezers. Puppets’ pulling strings.
Unheard-of mysterious creatures in Classics of Mountains and Seas.
Silence of Terracotta Army. Furnace and sword of the Chinese alchemists.
Before a stele in Japan I read through the palms
of my hands the immortal inscriptions of the Middle Kingdom.
A bronze doorknob in Buenos Aires calls out to
another bronze doorknob in a Shikumen from Shanghai. (Song Lin, translated from Chinese by Dong Li)