Source: Niu Qingguo Ecological Literature 2024-04-02 07:06 Shaanxi
Dongdu Yellow River Crossing Photo: Lin Xi
Why do I write about the Yellow River? Because I love the Yellow River, and I love it so concretely.
How can I write about this great river? I can only start from the relationship between a river and a person, write about a person's pursuit, running and dependence on a river, and write about the nourishment of the river and the kindness of the land to the river.
My poetry collection "Oh, Yellow River" belongs to a thematic creation, from November 2021 to November 2023, I wrote intensively for two years, and most of the works in the poetry collection were written in these two years, but in fact, its writing began many years ago, that is to say, from the first time I saw the Yellow River. It was around the summer of 1994 that I came to Lanzhou for the first time, and I saw the Yellow River in Yantan, which was full of mud and sand, and for the first time in my life, I saw a river in the real sense. Under the great shock of the Yellow River, I wrote my first poem about the Yellow River, entitled "Good Big Water".
Dahejia Photo: Niu Qingguo
Although I had seen the Yellow River a few times before, I had only passed by the Yellow River by car, which could only be regarded as a passing by. I remember the first time was in the summer of 1978, and the second time was in the autumn of 1982, passing the Yellow River Bridge in Jingyuan twice. At that time, I was not ready to communicate with the Yellow River. Years later, I wrote such reminiscence poems as "Memory: The Sound of the Night" and "The Story of the Yellow River".
In this work, I first write about the Yellow River as water, so that the water can return to the river, to a person's body and life. The water in my poems is not the kind of water that "the wise man enjoys the mountain, and the benevolent person enjoys the water", but the need for survival. Readers who are familiar with my work know that water has always been an important image in my poetry, which is related to the natural conditions of my hometown and my rural experience, such as "Drinking Donkey" and "Water".
In my heart, a drop of water is a seed, a birdsong, or even a spring thunder. The process of a drop of water running towards the leaves, grass tips, petals and crops is the process of running towards life, the process of running towards a river, and the process of running from history to reality and the future. In the face of a big river, the snowflakes of history have melted, "so many people and many things / The Yellow River has passed by with a smile", there is only the vast reality, only the distance to which the river runs. I strive to present the reader with an ancient and new Yellow River in my poems. I write a person's story about the Yellow River with a person's life experience, a person's walk on the Yellow River, and at the same time, I also write about the vast land in the upper reaches of the Yellow River and the noble and solemn life on the land.
During my years in Lanzhou, my biggest impression is that I live in a place where there is water, a city where you can see the Yellow River at any time. Every time I go back to the countryside and the villagers ask me how I'm doing in Lanzhou, I first say that there is a big river running through the city, and there is no shortage of water. At any time, you can see the Yellow River if you want to. On holidays, or in the evening, I like to go for a walk by the Yellow River, or find a stone on the bank to sit on, spring, summer, autumn and winter. Sometimes I think about the Yellow River, sometimes I don't think about anything. In the poem "Hearing the Yellow River", I wrote about my life in Lanzhou as follows: "I don't know how deep the water of the Yellow River is/I live on Baiyin Road, I only hear the hustle and bustle of the city/And the sound of the bus stop/In the dead of night, I feel that the Yellow River is still flowing/And it passes through the city/Later, I moved to Liberty Road/Often the roar of the train wakes me up from midnight/My breath fluctuates/Then my dreams also rise and fall/After I move the house/The flags fluttering during the day on the nearby campus/The sound of the river keeps coming/Sometimes I think about it." Why did I come here / How far is Xing'er Cha from the Yellow River".
In order to complete this work, I walked along the Yellow River in fits and starts, intermittently, from the source of the three rivers to the mouth of the Yellow River, and it can be said that I want to go wherever I can see the Yellow River. "Every time I meet the Yellow River / The wind blows me out of the sound of rushing water / The wind thinks I am the source of the river." Standing by the Yellow River in the wind, your heart will be turbulent.
Lanzhou Yellow River Photo: Niu Qingguo
I agree with the idea that "a drop of water can reflect the brilliance of the sun", but in the face of the Yellow River, I have to let some details reach the whole, such as "The Ballad of the Yellow River", "Time Song", "Earth Fu" and so on.
This collection of poems still does not leave my rural background in terms of subject matter, the starting point is still my hometown, and the center of my emotions is still the awe of life and gratitude for life, but this work mainly writes about the river and the life experience related to the river, so as to write a larger space and longer time than my hometown Xing'ercha, and write a broader hometown connected by the Yellow River.
Walking along the river, "the river led us along the way / Now we are going to take the river far away / I hear the river say yes to us". When I sat alone on the shore, "my father's beard grew on my chin / Mother's gray hair fluttered on my head", and when I "told the story of the past from the beginning / A river was moved". On the land through which the Yellow River flows, "all my imagination / has only one direction", and I see "corn stalks on the terrace / cheering in the wind for another victory". I finally discovered: "There is no permanent voice but the river / There is no eternal voice / There is no other meaning than love / The world".
The Yellow River is the mother river of the Chinese nation and the mother river of each and every one of us. Anyone who meets the Yellow River will be cared for by the Yellow River. Those who have a mother river are always alive. These little poems of mine may be a wave of flowers, a piece of grass on the bank, or a handful of sand under the river, but they are all my songs to the Yellow River.
About author:Niu Qingguo is a member of the Chinese Writers Association, vice chairman of the Gansu Writers Association, and senior editor of Gansu Daily. He has won many poetry awards such as the Chinese Population Culture Award, the Chinese Young Poet Award, the first prize of the Dunhuang Literary and Art Award of Gansu Province, the first prize of the Yellow River Literature Award, and won the title of the first Gansu Province Young and Middle-aged Literary and Art Workers, and was once rated as the "Top Ten Young Poets of the New Century" by the Poetry Journal. Some of his works have been translated abroad.
"Oh, Yellow River", by Niu Qingguo, published by China Yanshi Publishing House in January 2024
"The Biography of the Ancestral River", by Niu Qingguo, published by Dunhuang Literature and Art Publishing House in June 2022
"The Lamp Bearer", by Niu Qingguo, published by Gansu Culture Publishing House in February 2023
The works on this official account are authorized by the author, please indicate the source for reprinting
Editor: Eco-Literature (ID: gh_9747ce07bd08)
Submission email: [email protected]
Long press the QR code to pay attention to ecological literature
Ecological Literature