(Yinxi, the Keeper of the Pass, is drunk on guard….)
‘Everything we make is on the verge of art’ — the eight materials bound on a single arrow cut to the sparrowhawk’s purpose; a cartwheel, fit to the big, round world
they say. You’d like to think so! Our poems warmly bundled and shorn to earn their keep, their little intuition, huddling by the roadside in the rain –
Don’t give me me that! I’ll take you up to my observatory and show you how it is: your kings cannot complete this thing, their banners only confuse to convince – philosophy now but the East Wind in a horse’s ears!
Who said that? The great Li Bai! no less. So scratch it on a curving wall or paint it on a big red desert fit for only the planets’ eyes.
Agh now, don’t pull that face! You know I only say this to provoke. What do you want from me? I’m only a prostrate toad who tries to drink the sea, stuck on a rock between heaven and politics, stretching my legs to the fat green earth.
Look, forgive me. We’re all just talk! When we were children we chose to follow the fate of writing!
We understand each other and everything we say squats down on the verge on art!
