1.
No,
Behind the truth are other truths
2.
Rain makes a painting on the earth
In the classical manner
Meticulously depicting what’s hidden from view:
Mountain, forest, valley, gorge
Building, vehicle, person
Beasts, cattle, creeping things, and flying fowl
Gradually expressing the outline
From invisible to visible
From solid state to a state of change
Is this a form of justice?
Rain, and representations of rain
Shrouds, and the shroud’s ability to obscure and to change
This is like one who suffers
Crying
To describe the hunter, the torturer, the thief, the grifter, and the assassin
The one who suffers uses tears and exacting brush strokes
To scrub away the silk threads of pain, endless sorrow, sharp anguish, heartache, bloodletting grief, pain of breaking bone, pain of a thousand cuts, pain of losing one’s soul . . .
How many tears
Are needed to provoke
Another’s tears of sympathy?
Pain forms the boundary between life and death
Rain is another name for heaven and earth
All in the end is water
© Yang Licai. Translation © 2024 by Joshua Edwards and Lynn Xu. By arrangement with the author. All rights reserved.
