LANGUAGES: Poetry, by Bei Dao

LANGUAGES

“Many languages now spoken in this world. Flying above the words, meet, meet, bump, creating sparks, sometimes hate, sometimes love. The skyscraper of rationality, but collapses without vocals, with fragile and light thoughts. Bamboo tablets, a handwoven basket filled with poisonous mushrooms blinds. Those rock paintings quadrupeds we trample the flowers above, but a secret shower develops somewhere on Earth. The wind carries with it the seeds of order in countless languages, at the moment, lives, fly over the world. But the production of language, so incorporeal, cannot in any way increase or reduce the silent grief of men.”

(Bei Dao)