Scenes at Yulong Longevity Palace

It started with running| running the way long grasses
ran before a breeze| the way the people’s limbs
 
moved swiftly| constructing pillars & rafters for roofs
& houses| pictures in carvings on bone & bronze
 
graced with a curve| echoing the upward curl of tiles
prefiguring elegant characters| Liniang paints her self-
 
portrait for her lover Mengmei to find after she dies
Juliet calls from the balcony torn from Romeo
 
by their fathers’ feuding households| Swallows flit
amongst the beams and through the open doors
 
& latticed windows braids of willow sway| A cloud
curls like a roof| stirring Mengmei’s dream to bring
 
a bride to the father’s gabled house| Dramas live
in pictograms of man & house & pig| this little black
 
nimble beast rooting for grain & fruit| Its juicy meat
Mao’s whole little manure factory holding up the household
 
 
Jia Ren · Household

 

By Sophie Song

Lucy Hamilton

Published in Tears in the Fence, No. 72, Autumn 2020, ISSN 0266-5816

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The Red Jars

For Ms Ying Chen
 
Each morning the two jars respond to the day’s glow
filtering through our roof’s red window blinds
 
How elegant they are| here on the glass table
where they swell| drum-bulbous with a just pride
 
The low-framed table requires no further adornment
since the jars speak eloquently for themselves
 
their red bellies pregnant with sound & memory
I remove the black lids| and leaves dry as brown grass
 
fill them with fresh water| each to a disparate level
and tap out a rhythm with my bamboo chopsticks
 
I think of the ancient Jingdezhen mountain forests
and the valleys| where ‘ten thousand men’ stacked kilns
 
and fired ceremonial drums made of clay & kaolin
dyed in blood & cinnabar| decorated with cowries
 
Bewitched by tradition| villages danced to the drumbeat
aroused by the yin-yang dynamic of its power & spirit
 
 
Bi · Adorning

 

By Sophie Song

Lucy Hamilton

Published in Shearsman Magazine, Winter 2020/2021, IBSN 978-1-84861-737-7

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The Master Craftsman Weaves A Bamboo Vase

Gripping the blade in his right hand and bamboo
in his left| Mr Xu splits the wood lengthways
 
and lets the two pieces fall onto the pile at his feet
On the wall above| Ascending the River at Qingming
 
evokes ancient scenes I saw from a Fuzhou train
of graves strewn with flowers| This weaving frieze
 
flows the width of the workshop wall like the river
where junks once heaved abundant cargos of cane
 
He softens the strips in water and plaits the supple
threads into a three-metre vessel which lies on its side
 
Stubble-ends bristle around the lip of its open mouth
mimicking the jutting bean stems in the ideograph
 
In the old Chinese tradition he will exhibit the vase
at his house| one of a pair to keep his family safe
 
Now he takes up a black-dyed strand to complete
the face of the First Emperor| interlacing his memory
 
 
Feng · Abundance

 

By Sophie Song

Lucy Hamilton

Published in Shearsman Magazine, Winter 2020/2021, IBSN 978-1-84861-737-7

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The Elephant With Three Tusks

When I stroked the life-size green jade elephant
outside the Chalan Temple I hadn’t yet seen the bone
 
ideogram of the animal standing up on its hind legs
long trunk swaying in the air| nor the image
 
of two hands holding a small object in a gesture
of giving and receiving| Here just north of the ‘Cradle
 
of the Revolution’| I knew that herds of elephants
were once employed for war as well as for transporting
 
heavy timber| as I knew that local folk had delighted
in dancing the ‘elephant dance’| Story goes that only
 
twenty-five years ago a wealthy businessman dreamt
he saw himself renounce his excess and build this temple
 
The green jade is from Myanmar and the three tusks
symoblise king and the elephant’s special relationship
 
with Buddha| They say that Siddhārtha Gautama sang
while entering his mother’s womb as a white elephant
 
 
Yü · Delight

 

By Sophie Song

Lucy Hamilton

Published in Shearsman Magazine, Winter 2020/2021, IBSN 978-1-84861-737-7

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