No Trace of the Gardener: Poems of Yang Mu

No Trace of the Gardener: Poems of Yang Mu
Translated by Lawrence R. Smith and Michelle Yeh. (Yale University Press，1998)

King Wuʾs Night Encampment: A Suite

1.

On the fifteenth day of the first month, troops ford the river at Meng-chin

2.

We hear only bells and drums in the snowy field

their incessant clamor, but we

are already wounded

trees are wounded too, keeping soldiers warm. Only

the expedition itself has no pity for the river we will wade

Soldiers are divided into seven lines

When the new moon wanders across the sky of the first snow

we listen to Fung-kao soldiers ready themselves for battle

crying cowardly

with wills embroidered on their collars, after all theyʾll be

the nameless dead

What about hemp-holding widows and abandoned wives? When spring

watches the commander make offerings at the ancestral shrine

declaring the founding of a dynasty from a pool of blood

rising shakily, ashamed

3.

Do not be ashamed of your eloquent sleepiness

or the fatigue waiting for you at the ford

waiting as you silently board the ship and fall pale into the water

into the water to name a new widow for the western land

Widows

Brew no wine,weave no cloth for the victorious homecoming troops

Sailing to Ireland

A terrible beauty is born.

                                                              William Butler Yeats

On Saint Patrickʾs Day

I pin a shamrock on your door

But executionersʾ gunshots

Come back sooner or later. They are back

when on the first sunny day a breeze

wafts through the decay wild apple trees

have waited for—homesick like Ireland

like an Irish winter night

when God passes through the revolutionariesʾ graveyard

not knowing how to offer sacrifices to

Major John MacBride, who bled and died for violence

Daffodils are not fully grown

shouts are not suppressed, besides

many arrests are being carried out in the city

In the end they canʾt wait till Easter

before they pick up my shamrock with a bayonet

and trample it. By then springʾs here

clouds play at leisure over the sea

salmon reproduce in the mountain brook

new plays are rehearsed in May

People have forgotten what happened

On Saint Patrickʾs Day

1971

Let the Wind Recite

1.

If I could write you

a summer poem, when reeds

spread vigorously, when sunshine

swirls around your waist and

surges toward your spread

feet, when a new drum

cracks in the heat; if I

rocking gently in a skiff

riding down to the twelfth notch

could write you an autumn poem

when sorrow crouches on the riverbed

like a golden dragon, letting torrents and rapids

rush and splash and swirl upward

from wounded eyes; if I could write you

a winter poem

a final witness to ice and snow

the shrunken lake

the midnight caller

who interrupts a hurried dream

takes you to a distant province

gives you a lantern, and tells you

to sit quietly and wait

no tears allowed . . .

2.

If they wouldn't allow you

to mourn for spring

or to knit

if they said

sit down quietly

and wait—

a thousand years later

after spring

summer would still be

your name—

theyʾd bring you back, take away

your ring

and clothes

cut your hair short

and abandon you

by the edge of the enduring lake—

then at last you'd belong to me

At last youʾd belong to me

Iʾd bathe you

and give you a little wine

a few mints

some new clothes

Your hair would

grow back the way it was

before. Summer would still be

your name

3.

Then I'd write you

a spring poem, when everything

begins again

so young and shy

you'd see an image of maturity. I'd let you shed tears freely

I'd design new clothes and make a candle for your wedding night

Then you'd let me write

a spring poem on your breasts

in the rhythm of a beating heart, the melody of blood:

breast images and the birthmark metaphor

I'd lay you on the warm surface of the lake

and let the wind recite

1973

Manuscript in a Bottle

The west is where the sun sets

over the cypresses, waves

on the shore, but I know every breaker

begins at Hua-lien. Once, a confused boy

asked the distant land:

Is there a shore on the other side?

Now I'm on this shore, that's the other shore, and I see only

twinkling stars

Only the stars

shine on my haggard dejection

as I eagerly ask if the surging waves

miss Hua-lien's sandy beaches

I gather it takes ten summers

for a wave breaking on Hua-lien's shore to turn around

and reach this shore

Surely, with its resolve to plunge back into the water

it takes shape the moment it turns around . . . suddenly

another wave comes in

rolling peacefully onto the lonely shore

If I sit listening to each wave

and observing its shape—

a sketch of my future—

the small one on my left

could be a newly hatched roe

that one there, medium-sized

is probably seaweed, and the

big one in the distance may be a flying fìsh

tumbling in the fìre of a summer night

As a wave rushes to

the lonely shore, I wonder what

would be the best decision

Maybe I should be a breaker

swiftly reversing in the backwash

plunging into the peaceful sea

and brimming over the sandy beaches

of Hua-lien

Yet, when I set my foot in the water

a minuscule addition in weight causes the level to rise

and wet the shore even farther on the other side

and as I walk on, if I submerge myself

seven feet to the west off this lonely shore

will Hua-lien, my Hua-lien in June

start a rumor of a tidal wave?

1974

Zeelandia

T’ai-nan, Taiwan

1.

The enemy side has entered the muggy droning of cicadas

I look up from below stone steps; dense broadleaf trees

open into a bed of wind－

giant cannons have rusted. And I don’t know how to calmly ravish

her new blue flowered dress

in the history of stampeding gunsmoke

A bright expanse delights me

like a European sword boldly piercing through

a fallen torso. We go up the steps

drum in the troops, but when I

loosen her row of twelve buttons

I find what welcomes me still are her familiar

cool breasts asserting a birthmark

Enemy ships deploy on the sea

we sweat and get out of the rain

2.

Enemy ships are busy preparing for attack at dawn

we sweat as we set up defenses

Two pillows build a cannon mount

cicada droning fades away, the subtropical wind

churns into a swaying bed

To begin with you are a water beast from another land

so smooth, so clean

your limbs more slender than ours

You accent sounds crisp too

it’s a cry for help when ramparts crumble

and false as a dried-up well

Whenever I bend over, I always hear your

endless empty echoes

3.

The giant cannons have rusted, gunsmoke

vanishes in history’s broken pages

but I, worried, caress your waist

Once more the row of glossy green broad-leaf trees

waits for me to lie down and name it slowly

Seen from the bell tower

it’s one of your slanting pendants

each pearl is a battle

bullet holes from fierce fighting all over the trees

In my embrace of sulfur smoke, Holland’s body

Rolls like a windmill

4.

Counting in silence, I slowly loosen

the twelve buttons of the new dress

In Zeelandia sisters share

a dress that falls off easily in summer: the wind comes from the strait

and teases the open butterfly collar

where I thought I’d discover an archipelago of spices. But who would know

what appear before me still are

those cruel mint-scented breasts. Isla

Formosa, I’ve come to lie on

your bed of cool wind. Isla

Formosa, I’ve come from far away to colonize you

but I have surrendered. Isla

Formosa, Isla

Formosa

1975

Forbidden Game 3

Try to remember

the great concern in Granada

try to remember your language and pain

green winds and green horses, your

language and happiness—your occasional happiness­—

beyond the grove by the awakening riverbank

a donkey's hoofbeats at this moment at this louder than wine and harvest

She wishes to talk to you, with multisyllabic words

she wishes to talk to you (with gestures, too)

She inquires about the direction of the church

though this doesn't mean a young person like her

already understands religious Granada

Saint Michael, please protect

this good, curious girl

bring her up

teach her to hear— as she listens to the bell chime­—

historyʾs deeper sigh

recorded in an obscure place in the textbook

on the other side of the olive stained-glass window­—

the peasantsʾ sweat

the soldiersʾ blood

Teach her to recognize the row of fig trees on the riverbank

A wind once came from the assembled fortresses 

and persecuted a boy who left home on Sunday    

(his love as pure as his cap

he could recite Lorca's new poems)

The boy once lay dying under a row of beautiful

fig trees, too soon to shed

a peasant's sweat and a soldier's blood

Teach her to listen and know all this

Then you can give her back to me

a radical heathen

We'll spend the whole winter

studying rhetoric and semantics then

forgetting rhetoric and semantics. Weʾll

spend the spring traveling

discussing Granadaʾs myths and poetry

in a tavern throughout the night. Weʾll

do field work and interviews

and together spend the long summer vacation

collecting folksongs and proverbs. And autumn

will find us inside a red-leafed window

wiping away peasantsʾ sweat and soldiersʾ

blood; the little donkeyʾs hoofbeats will

be louder than wine and harvest

You will love such a good, curious girl

Saint Michael, try to remember

that great concern

1976

Virgil

Long hair spreads out on my left arm

You lay your head on dawnʾs wind

in my frail worn sleeves

I lay my head on Virgil

You stare at the lamp in front of the window

but I know you are thinking of Rome

Besides the wandering and slaughters in founding an empire

you should remember fìne pastoral songs

The wind comes from the golden boughs above

but here a cold forest in light ink

regulates the hermitʾs heart

I let you lay your head on dawn's arm

I lay my head on Virgil

and hear the burning and downfall of cities

weapons abandoned on plains of morning smoke

a ship quietly waiting on the sea

1976

Hua-lien

The roaring surf outside the window is just

my age, born on the eve of the War

at the end of the Japanese occupation of Taiwan

Like me, he is a dragon

we share the same temperament and keep

some unimportant secrets for each other

Awake at midnight, I listen to him telling me of

what heʾs felt and thought since we parted

Some of his stories were too fantastic and trivial

so 1didnʾt wake you up

I let you sleep, sleep peacefully

Tomorrow Iʾll pick the more interesting

and touching ones tell you

Though like me he is a dragon, his heart is immense

his understanding deeper; heʾs even better than me at

controlling changing moods and thoughts

In the afternoon he surged quietly by the balcony

and watched you carefully

(you clung to me and smiled, thinking you were

looking at him when in fact he was looking at you)

because you are the fairest

the most fairest bride of my hometown

Now itʾs midnight, on such a deep night

with you sound asleep, he whispers beyond the railing

He says: “Come here,I have something

To tell you.” I can't bear to

leave you in your sleep, so I turn around

and listen to his loving voice—

in the Mandarin we learned after the War

with a Taiwanese accent—speaking slowly, comfortingly

to a Hua-lien native who suddenly sheds tears

“Don't be sentimental,” he says

“tears should fall for others not for yourself”

The waves thrash the rocky shore, autumn is always

like this, always. “You must be

as immense as I am, and understand more deeply:

The War didn't change us, so

you mustn't be discouraged by any setback”

Some of his words we were too intense and serious

so I didn't wake you up

I let you sleep, sleep peacefully

Tomorrow I'll pick the more interesting

and moving ones to tell you

I want you to sleep, don't have the heart

to wake you up, even less to let you see me

cry from joy, from bringing you to my hometown

against the roaring surf on an autumn midnight

Tomorrow I'll reveal a small secret

to you: that's exactly what he says

he says you are the fairest

the most fairest bride of our hometown

1978

Seven Turns of the Coast 

On the seacoast where dark waves surge

we fìnd a place for resting and living

(you have followed me in my prolonged wandering

with two rods, a sword and a spear)

On a slope overlooking a prairie and a valley with a stream

we fìnd evergreen and fruit trees

a yard for you to practice martial arts, and a study

We are surprised to fìnd that

on the seacoast where dark waves surge

life is brighter than sunlight, purer than

snow, braver than wind and thunder. The North

Star is witness to it all, everything

no matter which direction you observe from

standing tall, joyous, and strong

faster than the flapping wings of a seagull

flying over floating icebergs

by the seacoast where dark waves surge

searching for the legend of the heart,  the legend of blood

the myth of green seaweed and coral―

under the palms of our hands, the vast

warm, bright ocean of life

Often I see curiosity

and anticipation fìll the space between your eyes and brows

focusing on purity and energy

On the seacoast where dark waves surge

the giant whales' garden lies behind the heavy fog

ships at regular intervals detour around it as they

head straight for our homeland, Taiwan

When you tightly close your slender hands

they become two black belt fìsts

when open, now gently comb your short

pretty hair, or fold tiny baby clothes

on the seacoast where dark waves surge

As expected, a big ship proudly hoists anchor

and sails straight for our homeland, Taiwan

Everything looks simple and easy

all the preparing, cleaning, watering

of potted flowers, feeding of squirrels on the patio

crossing the road with a bamboo staff from Lu-ku village

and bringing back a bag full of mail

On the seacoast where dark waves surge

you open your brother's airmailed letter and newspapers

Now sunlight reaches farther

to fìll your yard and my study

Spring will soon be here, our son

will live more fully, peacefully

in Taiwan; eloquent and strong

though he is born in another country

on the seacoast where dark waves surge

1980

Someone Asks Me Justice and Righteousness

Someone asks me about justice and righteousness

in a neatly written letter

mailed from a town in another county, signed

with his real name, including social; security number

age (outside my window rain drips on banana leaves

and broken glass on garden walls), ancestry, occupation

(twigs and branches pile in the yard

a black bird flaps its wings). Obviously he has

though long without reaching an answer to this important

question. He is good at conceptualization, his

writing is concise, forceful, and well-organized

his penmanship presentable (dark clouds drift toward the far end of the sky)―

he must've studied calligraphy in the Mysterious Tower style. In elementary school, he

probably lived in congested public housing in a back alley behind a fishing harbor

He spent most of his time with his mother, he was shy and

self-conscious about speaking Mandarin with a Taiwanese accent

He often climbed the hill to watch the boats at sea

and white clouds—that's how his skin got so dark

In his frail chest a small

solitary heart was growing—he writes frankly

“precocious as a Twentieth Century pear"    

Someone asks me about justice and righteousness

With a pot of tea before me, I try to figure out

how to refute with abstract concepts the concrete

evidence he cites. Maybe I should negate his premise first

attack his frame of mind and criticize his fallacious way of

gathering data, in order to weaken his argument

Then point out that all he says is nothing but bias

unworthy of a learned man's rebuttal. I hear

the rain getting heavier and heavier

as it pours down the roof and fills gutters

around the house. But what is a Twentieth Century pear?

They were found in the island's mountainous region

a climate comparable to the northern China plains

and transplanted to the fertile, abundant virgin land

a seed of homesickness that sprouted, grew

and bore flowers and fruit―a fruit

whose pitiful shape, color, and smell were not mentioned in classics

Other than vitamin C its nutrient value is uncertain

lt symbolizes hardly anything

but its own hesitant heart

Someone asks me about justice and righteousness

They don't need symbols-if it is reality

then treat it as such

The writer of the letter has an analytical mind

After a year in business management, he transferred to law. After graduation

he served in the army reserve for six months, took the bar exams twice...

The rain has stopped

I cannot comprehend his background, or his anger

his reproach and accusations

though I have tried, with the pot of tea

before me. I know he's not angry at the exams, because they aren't among his examples

He speaks of issues at a higher level, in a precise, forceful

well-organized manner, summarized in a sequence of confusing

questions. The sun trickles onto the lawn from behind the banana trees

glitters among old branches. This isn't

fiction―an immense, cold atmosphere persists

in this scant warmth

Someone asks me a question about

justice and righteousness. He was the neatest in his class

though his mother was a laundry woman in town. In his memory

the fair-skinned mother always smiled even when tears

streamed down her face. With her soft, clean hands

she sharpened pencils for him under a lamp

Can't remember clearly, but it was probably on a muggy night

after a fiery quarrel his father―his impassioned speech and heavy accent that even his

only son could not fully understand―

he left home. Maybe he went up to the mountains

where the climate resembles the North China plains to cultivate

a newly transplanted fruit, the Twentieth Century pear

On autumn night his mother taught him Japanese nursery rhymes

about Peach Boy's conquest of Devil Island. With sleepy eyes he

watched her rip out the seams of old army uniforms

and scissor them into a pair of wool pants and a quilted jacket

Two water marks on the letter, probably his tears

like moldy spots left by the rain in the corner. I look outside

Earth and heaven have cried, too, for an important question

that transcends seasons and directions. They have cried

then covered their embarrassment with false sunlight

Someone asks me a question about

justice and righteousness. An eerie spider

hangs upside down from the eaves, bobs in the false

sunlight and weaves a web. For a long while

I watch winter mosquitoes fly in a dark cloud

around a plastic pail by the screen door

I have not heard such a lucid and succinct

argument in a long time. He is merciless in analyzing himself

 “My lineage has taught me that wherever I go I will always

carry homesickness like a birthmark

But birthmarks come from the mother, and I must say mine

has nothing to do with it.” He often

stands on the seashore and gazes far away. He's told that where mists and waves end

there is an even longer coastline, beyond them, mountains, forests, and vast rivers

“The place that Mother has never seen is our homeland”

In college, he was required to study modern Chinese history, and he memorized the book

from cover to cover. He took linguistic sociology

did well in labor law, criminology, history of law but

failed physical education and the constitution. He excels in citing evidence

knows how to infer and deduce. I have never

received a letter so full of experience and fantasy

fervor and despair with a cold, poignant voice

a letter that strikes a perfect balance between fervor and despair

asking me, politely, about justice and righteousness

Someone asks me a question about justice and righteousness

in a letter that permits no addition or deletion

I see the tear marks expanding like dried-up lakes

In a dim corner fish die after failing to save each other

leaving white bones behind. I also see

blood splashing in his growing knowledge and judgment

like a pigeon released from a besieged fortress under fire­—

a faint hope of the exhausted yet persevering resistance—

it breaks away from the suffocating sulfur smoke

soars to the top of a stench-filled willow tree

turns around swiftly and darts toward the base of reinforcement troops but on its way is hit by a stray bullet

and crushed in the deafening encounter, its feathers, bones, and blood

fill a space that will never exist

and is quickly forgotten. I feel

in his hoarse voice that he once

walked in a wasteland, crying out

and screaming at a storm

Counting footsteps, he is not a prophet

He is no prophet but a disciple who has lost his guide

In his frail chest that pumps like a furnace

a heart melts at high heat

transparent, flowing, empty

1984

Spring Song

When lingering snow falls from the branches

I see the first cardinal of the year

skipping across the wet patio—

like a prisoner of conscience returning from far away

revealing determination in indifference—

wings glistening with the light of the southern temperate zone

he is a witness to the ultimate universalism

Such a common, believable theory

is mentioned every day, in preschool

classrooms, in laundry women's chitchat, in

the rightists' training class and the leftists' salon

in a soldier's fear and expectation

a mistress's recurrent dream: the omnipresent theory

of the ultimate universalism, he says

is repeated by people in every corner of the earth

at every minute. All in all

spring is here

Now he stops in front of my potted mountain pine

and peeks around. The lingering snow on the roof

melts quickly, pouring its abundance into the flower beds—

“Maybe my heart is vaster than

the universe," I challenge

as I stare at the cardinal's short beak, gentle, inarticulate

his feathers glistening from the caress of a long southern sojourn—

the most reliable light in this awkward season:

“Otherwise, what can you rely on

as you journey?"

“I rely on love," he says

suddenly raising the level of our conversation

Flapping his shiny wings, he skips into the clump of chrysanthemums

that were planted last autumn and survived the bitter winter

“I rely on the power of love, a common

notion, a practice. Love is our guide"

He stands among green leaves and moss-dotted stream rocks

abstract, distant, like a teardrop

quivering in its roundness in the fast-warming air

“Love is the god of the heart…” Besides

spring is here

1985

Lama Reincarnated

        A Tibetan lama died in San Francisco; some years later

they realized that he'd been reincarnated in Spain.

They looked for me everywhere, starting in Kashmir

going southeast along the Ganges

through wilderness and villages, under scorching sun，in rainstorms

past river gorges and mountain bends

Then they split into two groups:

one crossed the Irrawaddy River, pushing anxiously

eastward, across the Salween and Mekong

searched every pagoda and temple

The other group crossed the Indian subcontinent

turned to war-ravaged Afghanistan

endured hunger, fatigue, and error

before they entered ancient Galilee

When they entered Galilee with their alms bowls

on the way to visit the birthplace of Jesus

suddenly an explosion near the stone bridge—

a bomb set off by terrorist revenge

Total mystifìcation; gore

and violence are nowhere to be found

in their scriptures. They were unaware

the eastward group had just arrived in Korea

Pigeons fluttered through the teargrassed air. Cornered by

riot police, a young student

poured gasoline on himself and struck a match

With a loud cry, he leaped back, trailing smoke and angry flames in his wake

The monks turned out en masse, speaking one by one

in the square, while the other group left Galilee

along the magi trail

but in that frosty night they couldn't find the star

They sat deferentially on the bus, hardly talking to each other

Traveling day and night, they reached the seaside, boarded a ship

and arrived on shore, following another myth. Europe

with fig trees in every direction, but where could they find me?

At night they meditated by themselves. Outside the tavern

the nihilist Balkan Peninsula was in an uproar

wine flowed like fresh blood. They held a meeting

and decided first to go north to try the frigid zone.

They didn't know the other group

had already changed planes in Tokyo

and crossed the Pacific to North America, entering

a Mexico that seemed to hold possibility

They changed into their light yellow cloaks

hired a donkey cart, and visited many small towns

Everywhere people played the guitar

as they sang over and over again: ''Andalusia…''

The sea breeze fluttered against their searching eyes. They traveled

across many long and narrow countries this way

Sometimes helicopters appeared in the sky

chop, chop, chopping into pieces that Andalusia

lt was fortunate the other group

decided to turn around when they got to the Baltic Sea

though they couldn't help getting lost in the Black Forest

When spring came, they at last straggled into Morocco on foot

They sat on the ground, depressed, not knowing where their next stop

should be. To the east lay Italy (amen!)

to the west lay Spain (amen!). Church bells were

ringing everywhere: Where could they find me?

Africa? Perhaps their reincarnated guru

would appear in the Congo: a young lama of the Black Sect of Tantric Buddhism

They got up, dusted themselves off, and decided on the spot

to board a ship and sail straight to Gibraltar

That day they walked more than a hundred kilometers

thinking about the Congo all the while. They heard

donkey hooves clattering beyond the horizon

loving guitar melodies kept them company

Someone was singing at ease under a fig tree:

“Andalusia…" The song

arched across the parched plains. “Come with me

come with me to Andalusia"

They left the forked road. Lilies

bloomed on the golden hills

sparrows were flitting past, muskrats scampered

in the dry fields. I called softly to the wind:

“I am in Granada

Bring me the insignia from my previous life:

my crown of gold, staff, rosary, and robes and cloaks

Bring them to Granada, Andalusia"

By now the other group had traveled around

the tip of Chile. They, too, heard my whisper:

“I am in Granada." They looked left and right at the ocean:

“Granada? Ah—Andalusia"

Come, come, come to Andalusia

come find me, find me in faraway Granada

Let us sing and praise eternal Granada

a golden flower blooming in Andalusia

Come, come, come to Andalusia

come find me, find me in faraway Granada

Let us sing and praise eternal Granada

let us sing a new song about old Andalusia

1987