Zhou Qingrong, pen name Lao Feng. He is a member of the Chinese Writers Association, a standing director of the Fourth Council of the Chinese Poetry Society, a part-time researcher of the Chinese Poetry Research Center of Capital Normal University, and the main initiator of the "We- Beitucheng Prose poetry group". Editor-in-Chief of The Great Poetry, Stars. Honorary Editor-in-Chief of Prose Poetry. His published works include: "Love is a Moon Tree" (1990), "Butterfly That Can't Fly Away" (1992), "Love is a Moon Tree" (collection, 2000), "Scenic Years" (2004), "Selected Prose Poems of Zhou Qingrong" (2006), "We" (Chinese and English Collector's Edition, 2010), "People with Ideals" (2011), "Prophecy" (2014), "People with Distance" (2014), "People with Temperature" (2017). He is also a translator of "Western Contemporary Art", "Parkinson's Third Law", "Secret Documents of Odessa" and so on. He has won various poetry awards.
Stand with the lights on
Zhou Qingrong
Hats off to lotus
The moment of essence is coming.
Facing the residual lotus after late autumn, what I saw was the old man's bone feeling standing.
The beauty of purity never sighs for the consequences, and the residual lotus is an example in my eyes: beyond the seasonal vegetables that can always be satisfied, they announce the beginning of the era of lotus.
Is it just lotus?
It is truly silent life under the dirt. Just lotus holes?
It is the philosophy of breathing that they must learn not to be suffocated.
When the residual lotus suspends the passage of praise, the patience should reap the most exquisite autumn.
The remnants of the lotus stand in the late autumn, and they wait for the appearance of the lotus. They pay homage to the lotus!
2018.10.18am
Photo by Lei Li
Post-wheat age
After the sun participates, it is still a large piece of wheat that is even more spectacular. The air cried out in pain on the mai mang, and the sparrows cheered above. The wheat is ripe and the land can be reported.
The felt hat-shaped granary began to be carefully maintained by its owners.
Near and far flour mills are ready to deny the independence of each grain of wheat, and the large family of flour has extraordinary plasticity.
Fields, furrows, arms that sow seeds;
The only crops that can be green in winter, the starlings rejoice in the harvest of the world; dry smoke, the faces and wrinkles of farmers;
When I tried to restore these, I was actually already an ally of the flour mills. In the post-wheat era, the process of growth was neglected.
Flour is a food, a grain of wheat that comes down from an ear of wheat, and they must grind themselves, they must love each other again, and then they must mix.
2019.11.2 am
The blacksmith in the archives
Between the hammer and the anvil, a piece of red-hot iron awaits to be struck.
"Boom, boom," and then "boom," mars splashed on the blacksmith's canvas guard, like red iron boiling hot and superfluous language, and the floor of each blacksmith's shop was covered with iron filings of different shapes.
The hammer continues.
Red Iron finally had nothing to say.
Want to know the will of the blacksmith?
Look at the palm of his hand first, thick and densely covered. Oh my God, the muscles of his arms were like the vicissitudes of the torso of an old tree. This glamorous and powerful beauty, the laborer will be molded for red iron.
The red iron turns into a sickle, and there will be wheat and rice in the fields, which will come out of their own growth and enter the granaries.
Red iron is made into a plough, and the seeds will be sprinkled on the plough ditch. The things in the land stubble after stubble, they live and die.
Red iron is an axe, and the stubborn existence of the world should be cut down.
The blacksmith knocks with a hammer, and the red iron becomes another hammer under the hammer. Some of the chains are about to be smashed.
Years later, the significance of the blacksmith can only be found in the archives.
Tonight, years later, I opened my dusty memories and drank a pot of spirits.
Eyes like fire, red iron is still in my body? Am I my own discoverer?
When I suddenly remember the blacksmith who has passed away for years, every tear is a spark.
2021.7.7.000 am
Dawn's Heart
In any darkness, there will be people sitting in the darkness.
Whether you have tomorrow depends on whether you have a heart of dawn or not.
In the early hours of the second morning of August, lightning danced outside the window, and thunder struck the dull summer night like a hammer.
At this moment, I turned off the lights and sat alone.
Those who walk, those who waddle, those who fly like flying, are the ways I see walking during the day;
Those that blossom, those that bear fruit, and the hedges that are constantly being repaired, things are doing their part.
The crops and granaries in the fields in the distance were talking, and I was willing to be inspired by everything I saw.
In the darkness, I think of the mutual love between people I have not seen, it is an inscription that is secret, it is a force in the darkness. Yes, lightning is the fuse of dawn.
Years from now, I'll remember this pre-dawn sitting alone.
Thunderstorms, this is the test that everyone must go through in their lifetime.
2019.8.2 am
winter solstice
Winter really goes deep into the bone marrow.
After having a drink with my brothers, on the shore of a frozen lake, I wanted to record the silent blessings of life.
Bless the days ahead and keep what was once true. What is time?
I threw a tile hard against the ice, sliding so quickly between hard and hard that the other shore was so tentative.
The language of the winter solstice is actually as simple as sliding, and friends hold friendships in the air with hot hands, hoping to grow in the depths of winter.
When I say that time is when the tiles glide rapidly on the surface of the lake on the winter solstice, who is remembering the waves? Who is listening to the hope that arrives in an instant?
Then I sat down on a stone bench.
This silent expanse, which made the lake freeze the knot, a man who had a lot of attitudes towards life, he didn't say a word.
He lit a cigarette, and the lonely burning under the stars refused to utter superfluous words. The other shore echoing in the air should be thanked for the ice of winter, which makes the distance simple into the grace of sliding.
All spring blossoms must first pass the test of the winter solstice.
2019.12.22 am
Let's stand with the lights together
——Guan DaiWei painting "The Old Man of India with the Lamp"
How many other night roads do we have to carry the lights?
The air currents that can blow out a lamp should be carefully counted: the breeze thrown by the lazy willow branches of spring, the bad temper that jumps from the fallen leaves of dead trees in late autumn, the cold gags that wander on the ice, these are the crises that a lamp may face.
A lamp should exist for a sufficient reason: for example, black clouds press the city, such as reaching out and not seeing five fingers. More situations are everyday sighs, and they slowly become a haze in the heart.
Those who have darkened themselves, come on, I will light the lamp for you.
I re-positioned the old man in Dai Wei's painting: on the other side of the Ganges, just as the stars were shining in the sky at dusk.
Countless people who are still on this shore, what kind of sound is the sound of the river blowing in the evening wind?
If you find that life does not yet give them a complete commitment, please prepare the following night path: paddling the boat of life, there is a lamp on the other side, it does not belong to the illusory aura, it is the direction of people in the darkness.
In fact, the Indian old man in the painting may be every elder in our lives, they will engrave the vicissitudes on their foreheads, who are lost, the lights will be lit for whom.
The hypothetical location may not be the Ganges, it may be the desert and bumps between the virtual and the real, and if I am confused when I am nearly a year old, I will collect this painting carefully.
Late at night, I stood next to the painting.
When the night is so big, it is not enough to hold the lamp alone.
I would like to be another kind person with a heart that can shine in the darkness.
2019.4.17am
Human totem
First the storm, then the calm of a person.
When the stones rolled down from the top of the mountain, some people cheered and some people were horrified.
Regarding the totem of man, I hope that someone in front of me will hold it up with a bronze arm.
The muscles in the arms hint at the civilian's strength, and what flows inside the blood vessels is a real struggle.
The life after the totem sacrifices its life for righteousness, and everything is outside the body.
A person's calm can only be verified in a crowd that no one can ignore.
In the life of all nations, there will be a totem.
The Mani pile is the basis of the totem, and the stones finally meet each other, the heavens and the earth support each other, and the prayer flag flutters on the mani pile. The long wind gusts, the prayer flag interprets the shape of the wind and clouds, and emits a sound that can only be understood in time.
Born of a totem, God will be ashamed of himself.
2019.11.5 early morning
Specimens of the soul
——Guan Daiwei's sketch "Jianchang Gubai"
The lush foliage is superfluous, the cute squirrel and the legendary phoenix are superfluous.
The richness of life has bid farewell to the vividness of adolescence, the years that are farther away than the sky, like a towel soaked in sweat, and after the various forces in life tighten it, it is the waist of this cooper in front of me.
The body that was wrung out and squeezed, its right side stubbornly greened with the hope of survival. The withering on its left side is the inertia of decay, and it has finally failed to summarize life in general.
"Life often encounters these, historical and present. ＂
"That's how I am with the light. The vicissitudes in his eyes are my thousand years of wisdom. ＂
By the time I read what Cooper wanted to say, the painter Dai Wei had already made a specimen of his soul in ink.
I admit that I need such a specimen.
Reminder or encouragement, people are middle-aged, a cooper is my destiny, but also my example.
2019.11.13 am
Spatial theory
A star in the universe, a star in the Milky Way, a bright spot standing on the earth and looking into the sky, a little light in the whole darkness.
A mountain on the earth, a slope of a mountain, a peach tree on the slope,
A branch of a peach tree, a flower on the branch, a fragrance in the spring.
At the highest level of animals, a person can maintain a standing posture with the bones in his body, a person can use his own unique language and ideas to come out of a huge crowd, a person's space sometimes covers everyone, and a person's space will be so small that he has nowhere to hide. A person's property warrant includes airspace, territorial sea and specific deeds, and a person's final space is the mining rights underground, and excavation is immortality.
2020.3.22 am
The Yellow River flows through ShizuiShan
The true mouth of the name can bite all the splendor, and then its language is apocalyptic silence.
The local shape is like an engraved mouth, and the ordinary who has been sleeping in the past will finally speak?
Shizui Mountain stands on the banks of the Yellow River.
The ridges on both sides are illuminated by the midday sun, they are the striking wrinkles of Shizui Mountain, the vicissitudes of time are on the left, and the glory of life is on the right. The stone mouth is open, and the gentle water of the Yellow River is the greatest tongue in front of my eyes.
People who work under Helan Mountain, please accept a soft and deep kiss.
The words spoken by Shizui should be found in the wind, and the sound is crisp or turbid, and it needs to be distinguished in the waves of the Yellow River. Flocks of sheep climb the hillside, eagles fly over the forehead, and the smoke from the villages by the wheat fields continues to convey the news of the world to the sky. They are all central to the Shizuishan language.
There are still many unspoken words, they are the holiness of the source of a river, the language of the future of the world, the glacier will eventually melt, and the river will flow through ShizuiShan.
2019.10.17 am
Valley lake and mountain relationship
A lake of water, guarded by mountains, takes in their reflections with the gentleness of the sunset. Waves rise at the top of the hill and schools of fish jump across the slopes.
Several old visitors entered the mountain, and what was not completed in the past was the aesthetics of memory.
The relationship between the lake and the mountain is always overlooked in our daily lives. You stand tall on high.
I embrace your shadow tenderly in the low places, wiping your radiant forehead with the water of ripples and the vicissitudes of the invisible years on your forehead.
When the valley is like this, the brave can rise up to the ground.
2019.7.21 Night
Breaking the secret
Facing the mountain, the abyss is always stranger to each other.
Countless similar glories have not yet defeated me, because I have been creeping very well, snails clinging to the branches, and the branches seem to come out of nowhere.
The abyss is the most conducive to the fermentation of things, the events that exist in the lower places and the river and sunlight falling in mid-air, those plant shapes that understand and do not understand, seem to be wrong, they slowly ferment in the abyss.
Therefore, the spring water is like wine, the fungus is like a mushroom, and the people who come out of the abyss are like gods.
After rejecting the unresolved daily phenomena, simply go straight to the end.
Butterflies, bees, cold-water fish in the spring, black bears, roe deer, small flower snakes before hibernation, thick colorful fallen leaves and spreading moss marks, if you come, sit alone in the abyss.
Sit and watch the vicissitudes of the mountain, and then sit and read the face of the rock after being eroded by the wind and rain. The fog is like a cosmetic before sunrise, and the essence of those rocks is clear when the sun is shining.
The peaks that can be seen from each other only show each other on one side, and each hides its shadow.
All the intimate interdependence, fermentation, daily and eternal efforts in the abyss, I was impressed by the known and unknown possibilities in experience, as if seeing a butterfly of love and even a phoenix nirvana. Come, the abyss sits alone, together as gods.
2018.9.3
Excerpted from "Standing by the Lamp", written by Zhou Qingrong, published by Sichuan People's Publishing House in December 2021