Walking sets my fancy free
The sky fades to a pale blue hue
The air’s frail skeleton cracks in view
Heaven, a village drowned in water’s blue.
Ma Yongbo is a distinguished poet and scholar from China
MA YONGBO, born in Nanjing in 1964, Ph.D., is the representative of Chinese avant-garde poetry, and a leading scholar in Anglo-American poetry. He is the founder of polyphonic writing and objectified poetics. He is also the first translator to introduce British and American postmodern poetry into Chinese, making contributions that fill gaps, the various postmodern poetry schools in Chinese are mostly guided by his poetics and translation. He has published over eighty original works and translations since 1986 included 9 poetry collections. He focused on translating and teaching Anglo-American poetry and prose including the work of Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Williams and Ashbery. He recently published a complete translation of Moby Dick, which has sold over 600,000 copies. He teaches at Nanjing University of Science and Technology. The Collected Poems of Ma Yongbo (four volumes, Eastern Publishing Centre, 2024) comprising 1178 poems, celebrate 40 years of writing poetry. His work is widely published in international journals such as New American Writing Livemag, Cafe Review, International Times, Vox Populi, Ink Sweat and Tears, Orbis, Cambridge Poetry, Polismagazino.gr, europeanpoetry.com, Verse-Virtual.org, Magique Publishing, Primelore.com, Verseum Literary, Area Felix Masticadoresusa Feed the Holy ONE, Sindh Courier Lingo Lexicon Worldinkers，Avantappalachia，Masticadorescanada，Madswirl，Collaborature，Allyourpoems，Homouniversalisgr，100subtextsmagazine，Pandemoniumjournal，Cultural Reverence Rochford Street Review Synchchaos Ezra Autumn Sky Poetry Daily Nuthatchmag Posit Yumpu Our Poetry Archive All Your Poems Subliminal. Surgery Atunis Insightmagazine Lothlorien Poetry Journal Acheron Gorkogazette A Too Powerful Word Chiron Review Gas Chewers Medusaskitchen Beatnikcowboy Dear O Deer! New Black Bart Poetry Society, Edge of Humanity Liveencounters Big Other etc.
Walks
I
A stammering river bank
Leaving three villages in its wake
Glimmers far, far away
Watching me wander o’er the sand ridge.
Walking sets my fancy free
The sky fades to a pale blue hue
The air’s frail skeleton cracks in view
Heaven, a village drowned in water’s blue.
I pass pensive trees with bowed heads low
I read bliss in their taut, slender boughs
A curling infant lies
Its toes digging soft in shadowed ground.
Where trees were torn away, a well breaks through
Dawn’s blurred lines fray out of view
A line of buoys smolders, wreathed in smoke
A man rises, then leaves the river bank.
I turn left then, breaking rigid bounds
—solid shapes and straight lines
I know you love the gentle curve
A hunchback bird migrates along the river
II
I stepped out for a walk that day
Along an old familiar way
Old houses, old love undisturbed
Still coated with the dust of bygone worlds.
Beneath every glimmer lies an endless sea
A window opened by a gaze, a garden free
My kin lie sound asleep in shadow deep
Their dreams draw near, like a green path at my feet.
Today new sights shall meet my eye
Shifting light, drifting clouds fading nigh
A little girl upon white stone stairs
Draws runes and flames with careful cares.
Through peeling fences, bare trees lie asleep
I see her—behind her keep
A gloomy ancient house stands tall
A grimy old beast crouching overall.
Yet the white steps shall never fade
The girl draws on, time unheeded
Unaware above her quiet head
A great comet slowly spins.
My heart, let sorrow not abide
When you tread childhood lanes at morning tide
All has long changed; the girl beside the door
No call on earth can wake her evermore.
III
Men have chattered far too much of eternity
Their being poured into flesh-made water guns
Shooting upward, weak in gravity
A fleeting flash of light, then nothing runs.
—Behold the age we dwell within
Heads soaked in our own body fluid
Eyes sing low amid the dusty haze
Pure alchemists raving in broken tower.
Still the lighthouse tramps the ocean wide
Expanding darkness’ boundless side
Men play tennis on the lawn at noon
A white ball falls into two souls’ lagoon
(Each lost alone in private thought)
When the ball drops, one soul is caught and gone.
So I turn back halfway, no tears shed free
Not like sages weeping at crossroads’ misery
I just pause a while amid the noon crowd’s hum
To hear a child’s simple, gentle words
Twenty-eight years old, as if life never comes undone.
IV
Child who fears the dark night’s breath
Your face shall be stained black by deathless night
Child who fears the realm of faithless wreath
It is your own fancy that brings the shadowed light
No comfort now can calm your lonely chest
Our blood and flesh no longer intertwine
You must live alone, and think alone, and rest.
Without dust and scales to frame their flight
Butterflies shall vanish from all sight
Without ash and bitter cold’s sharp sting
Flames shall cease to burn, no longer sing.
Darkness torn from primer pages, colored balls
We trade small notes with secret calls
Stars fading slow in cosmic space
And vast tides flowing between starry grace.
Just as the night we face each passing hour
Shall turn to light within your hopeful power
It may be serene, it may be holy and mild
A warm rough hut where peace is compiled
Horses graze soft in autumn’s hold
The last cricket leaps from the trough’s cold fold.
V
I shall tell you of hope’s faint spark
A slender hope born at morning’s mark
Once I was a small boy in early light
Blessed with simple, innocent delight.
Keep patience deep as woodland trees
Hoarding sweet sap through bitter freeze
When sunlight rends the ice and snow apart
Life carves green paths across the sky.
Like a bird cutting through gray cloud
Though heaven’s gates shall never hail its sail
It trusts in life, composed, serene, unveiled.
So we shall learn from beasts and growing green
Seek wisdom in our ancestors’ unseen
On late autumn nights, come listen close with me
Apples falling soft to earth are not decay.
Shake unrest and shadow from the tree of our soul
The air shall taste sweet as milk
Drawn from the universe’s deep breast
Come with me to the river at lightning’s blest
Watch a boat moored slow beneath the bridge’s arch
Beneath dark clouds that sink and march
How calm the boatman sleeps in quiet rest.
My child, then we shall head home through wind and rain
(September 17–18, 1991)
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