You can light a lamp in the cottage, sweep the floor, brew tea,
waiting for the rain, waiting for the wind—but not listening for the sound of the wind，
nor are there any cranes calling in the wind, portending anything,
the great river flows east, yet the low clouds over it remain motionless for a long time.
This is an obscure city; the flowers are heavy with last night’s rain,
near the Washing flowers Stream, you settle your equally heavy middle age,
winter feels like spring—the rain turns to mist that lingers, refusing to dissipate,
or condenses in the moss on the steps, deepening its green.
In the Washing flowers Stream, are there really women washing flowers with complicated petals,
dying the water a rouge-red? perhaps this is not the first time you have been here
the last time was in a distant dynasty, driving a lean donkey,
carrying a bundle of thatch from beyond the Jianmen Pass through endless winter rains
hesitating between life and death, stubborn as that donkey,
lingering between dry thatch and thatch blackened by the rain.
On paper you draw a chessboard, and also draw the people’s rivers and mountains,
along with your real estate developer’s ideals. A residence of three years and nine months,
a temporary respite in the midst of chaos. When the rain from the leaking roof soaks the quilt,
you should realize that this world has always been a stage made of thatch—
not a magnificent hall, not a thatched cottage, only some straw figures standing above,
looking down on the multitude, and you are among them, like a somewhat bored tourist.
