Issue 13
Rock
Cindy Carter
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Shadow Casting Rocks
There are two rocks in Dali township. One is tall; the other is not. Both are metaphorical and separated by a wide blue lake. With each new sunset, the tall one throws mad shadowscapes across the lake -- clouds and rabbits, trees and pears, stupas, steeples, temples and pagodas -- signs the short one dodges best it can. No, it is not fair. And yet older than the sediment, it is: religion, caste, politics, war. Older than the sediment, the land: geology, hubris, science, waste. Older than the land, the elements: air, metal, earth, fire, water. But nothing, even water, lasts forever. Now they say the lake is shrinking, drying up, and that when the last drop is gone, these rocks will be forever changed. A township more concrete, perhaps. A place where mountains, once estranged, must stand together.
~Cindy Carter
Cindy Carter is a Beijing-based poet and translator of Chinese film and fiction. Her translation of Village of Stone will be released by Random House/UK in early 2004.
© 2003 by Cindy Carter. All Rights Reserved.
© Copyright 2003 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.