West Spring Eye

by Yongbo Ma

All around are green mounds, no taller than the high-rise buildings in the city
like empty tombs waiting for their owners’ return. On the horizon,
there are no lofty mountains either: no Parnassus, no Helicon, no Kunlun Jade Mountain,
only layers of blue screens, stretching in staggered rows into the distance,
you can never draw near, you are always where you are not,
you are always further west, no matter what name we call you-
Castalia Spring, Hippocrene Spring, or even the Jade Pool,
you remain always a third-person “it”.

The potential paths that might exist are no more than vines
groping blindly through dense thickets, pricked and curling back,
thus, our relationship shifts from “I and Thou” to “I and It”,
thus, we travel in a world that is forever external,
and find peace in its externality-for it is nothing but
the largest man-made reservoir in a northern provincial capital,
it is no smaller in scale than Jingpo Lake, only lacking a waterfall.

Its dam has long been closed to human access,
years ago, those who stood atop it gazing at the water
would always pace back and forth with the same steps,
paying no mind to the abundance or dryness downstream, occasionally whistling,
if it matters at all, this is a pleasant outing

Even though the resorts and campsites are all closed, the season already late,
by the melon field, a large pot boils syrup made from overripe watermelons
thick brown liquid oozes out, unattended,
there is no dizzying height to turn us into poets-.
we are merely a few dispensable tourists, somewhat dazed,
lingering between staying and leaving, like the shrinking watermelons in the field.