Читать книгу A Forest of Names - Ian Boyden - Страница 10
ОглавлениеMAY 13
Zhèngxī
正犧
First Glimmer of Dawn
Even the moon was shaken.
How the dust settled so quickly.
The people looked to where
the sun should rise, waited
as if it were an offering.
They held the place
where they thought their heart should be
though there was no proper place.
Stones, parts of buildings,
papers scattered like leaves.
It must be winter,
but the trees say it is late spring.
The horizon of her name,
dark blue but fading.
MAY 20
Péi
培
Banked with Earth
Where continuity consists of brokenness,
we plant the seeds of forget-me-nots.
MAY 21
Yuèxīn
月新
Made New by the Moon
She came with her chisels and carved,
month after month, until the tree
was a thousand feet of moonlight.
MAY 23
Xiùpín
秀頻
Perennial Inflorescence
Walk the wild meadows of late May.
With the slightest wind,
her name sweeps the sky.
MAY 24
Yǔchén
嶼晨
Island Daybreak
Hands ring the isolate of earth
where her name lies buried in the morning sun.
She was four.
MAY 27
Jìtáo
濟陶
Crossing the River of Delight
Wind crosses the ripening field
like a hand across raw clay.
The first gift
a name the texture of infinity.
JUNE 1
Shuǎng
爽
Clear and Crisp
The dictionary fell open,
a single word
offering autumn light.
Then, as now,
her name cradles the broken
and unbroken lines of divination.
JUNE 3
Zhuō
卓
Outstanding Divination
Because the reading is also a becoming,
in his name there stands
a person who reads these texts—
A cloud’s color within the arc of a bird’s flight.
The chattered cracks in bone at fire’s edge.
JUNE 4
Xiǎoyù
曉钰
Daybreak Treasure
One jade dawn,
instead of searching the horizon,
she walked the limitless shore
of her own waking.
JUNE 9
Fēifēi
飛飛
Profusion of Wings
Her name an invisible bird—
waiting to take flight
from each mouth that called for her.
JUNE 12
Chéng
誠
Sincerity
If I am to be completed by words,
let them be the words of earth
and not of abdication.
JUNE 14
Míngkūn
明坤
Elucidate Earth
Plant a field of lightning.
Who will harvest the fruit?
JUNE 18
Hàngǒng
瀚拱
