Climbing the Heights on the Double Ninth ----People all around adorned with flowers, but someone is missing
The problem of longing for family the problem of brotherly love
The most touching problem of all is
Climbing the heights
When you’ve reached a pinnacle
And raise a cup
Today I am alone who is there to talk to?
Taking in a distant view what people call the North Bank
Is that a single white ribbon joining the River, or are there two?
Wherever those twined currents go I'll be content
Beyond the North Bank are beautiful women without number
Every man who climbs these heights will think of them
Even if in the next thousand years mammals
And humans merge into one
Maintaining the balance of Nature
Today I raise a cup alone while River and mountains change color
This figure, "Nine Nine" is once again
Reborn in my veins
Faraway peaks above and below
Plunge naked into my heart
It's useless but all I can do is
Enjoy the glorious sunshine
Longing is miserable Being drunk is miserable too
How many sighs in the soughing of the wind? Who will answer my echo?
Wine poured down the throat flows into the body's deepest reaches
Problems of desire and mortality
Problems of separation and health
Also change inside the throat and flow into the body's deepest reaches
They become nimble yet meticulous
They're drunk and they're everywhere
Notes:
Zhai Yongming notes that she wrote this poem after climbing Xisha Mountain in Nanjing on the Double Ninth. The Double Ninth is a festival that takes place every autumn, on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. The original meaning of the festival may have been related to driving away bad luck, but it has long been an occasion for outings, especially hikes in the hills to some viewpoint, for chrysanthemum viewing, and for drinking chrysanthemum wine. Traditionally, people also wore zhuyu flowers on this day, for good luck. The epigram is taken from a poem by the Tang dynasty poet, Wang Wei (699-759 CE), "Missing My Shandong Brothers on the Ninth Day of the Ninth Month" (九月九日忆山东兄弟).
The Fifth MonthThis is a day full of suspicion, she arrived at this place
And the moon revealed its savage light, seeding heartrending secrets
Walking in the dark, the phosphorescent night, natural and unadorned
She made the whiteness well-defined
So many nights, one after another, her hands
On your chest keep their mystery
Broadbean flowers are eating up Tranquil Village with great care
Falling asleep is incomparably sweet for others
Along the river, a strange tree is sneering faintly
Someone sighs at anonymity, but she doesn’t mind
Entering your living body
Gives certain things a shape; are they alive?
A suffering tree alters its appearance overnight
The scarecrow guarding the wheat fields is startled
His roots have disappeared beneath the heaving earth
She goes, she returns, with a dream-like quality
At the corner of two low walls
A gigantic pomegranate
Displays its lusty colors
Walking languidly, despising all the winds
With a hand in all kinds of evil, she’s always been like this
The tender and intimate voice in your heart
Grew faint long ago
For the other insomniacs, in the fifth month, recalling
Planchette and incantations spreads an unconscious fear
The Testament of Hu Huishan — With gratitude to Uncle Liu Jiakun
who built a memorial to Hu Huishan;
but who will make memorials
for all of my classmates?Where do they lie I cannot find them
No one remains who knows their names
They too had mothers and fathers mothers and fathers who also burned like flames
They too had umbilical cords umbilical cords that took their parents' lives
Winding towards the ground
They too had milk teeth but no one remains to save them
There won't be another school where we might study
It’s gone forever and it's not in Heaven
Nor is there a mother or father to weep for me
They're gone forever and they're not in Heaven
This is the longest fissure on the face of the earth
It swallowed us all and all that remains
Are huge numbers numbers large enough to make an even greater number of people
weep
When the grade of concrete used for my memorial
Is better than that of my school could my frail body
Lift up the mighty earth
Could I turn my body and release energy from underground
Visible to people on the surface
The bodies of my entire class lie crushed
The corpses of those boys and girls sticking out
Like flowers in the crevices between stones thrusting out their final bright beauty
We who are now silent
Can no longer show others
The sort of force that turned our school to rubble
This I can feel: above my head
People are no longer suffering except for my parents
The earth no longer quakes except for chance flashes of lightning
Flowers will bloom again cool breezes will blow again songs will be sung
Those two months of anger are past
My name is Hu Huishan
Born October 11th, 1992
Died May 12th, 2008 at 2:28 in the afternoon
I lived for 15 years, 6 months and 23 days,
And was cremated on May 15th, 2008
My name is Hu Huishan
When I was alive I liked literature, and dreamed of becoming a writer
I haven’t left much behind for my mother and father:
Photographs, book bag, notebook, milk teeth, umbilicus . . .
I’ve left nothing for anyone else
My name is Hu Huishan
If only I’d never been born never been mourned
Had never been held in my parents' arms
Had never caused them all this pain
If only the beauty that remained was a 15-year-old's smiling face
Instead of just a place name, the name of a town
