Golden as harvest itself

were the weeds drying under the October Sun, who

on its way retreating the boundless ocean of

the South

lingered upon this Chinese village

teetering on the edge of The Tropic of Cancer. Is that

a book in your hand? Put it down

before you hurt yourself. Toss it under the shade of the

Sycamore tree – there, under which

the students had their school uniform coats piled up into

a navy-blue mountain silently growing,

growing. Like the golden weeds and verdant rice

that have fought over this inch of soil for thousands of years,

they are all beckoning for the blade.

The blade that was being passed down from the teachers to the pupils

to slice them in half by the waist.

Hand me the sickle – yes, it is just under your knee

Be careful. No, stop, stop.

You grab the handle and I’ll catch the other end.

(Her gloved right hand eagerly embraced the knife

reddened by the setting sun and the rust

that clung to the metal like an aging scab.)

Like the deserted bride in that 200-year-old poem,

“her fingers were the scallions in Spring.”*

Her shadow devoured the words on the page, the dagger

limp in her hand, still dripping

the blood of the rice, the blood of the soil,

and the blood of hers and mine.

Are you still reading your book? Have you ever tried

reaping the rice before?

The synthesized material of her glove,

the dizziness of bending my neck beneath the October sun

and I must have been musing over the countless metaphors

about plants, that for one moment

the world was swallowed by gold and crimson.

I thought she must have flung the knife into my lap,

flung it at our 16-year-old wrists, ankles and knees

that ached incessantly during the night. They were stretching,

to the point that there were nothing we could do,

but to lie awake, listening

to the sound of our blood gushing in our bodies

like the first tide of rainwater in early Spring. Listening

to the sound of us overgrowing,

like the rice stalks we have just learned to clumsily reap.

*This is a line quoted from the ancient Chinese narrative poem Kongque Dongnan Fei（Southeast Fly the Peacocks) composed around the 4th century. Depicting a tragic love story, this line, in the context of the original poem, describes the beauty of Liu Lanzhi (the abandoned wife) when she was banished from her husband’s house.