|
login
|
|
< back |
Chinese poem not available
|
Stone from Kata Tjuta
here I am in a valley in Kata Tjuta
a famous Australian tourist destination and standing alone in this nation’s stone fortresses: countless stones scattered everywhere ochre-red earth aborigines like eggs laid by God knows what tiny birds hidden inside to be hatched out one day I’m imagining what kind of bird that might be I play around with one of them right up until sunset’s footsteps walk up to me and I have to decide to take it with me or not there’s something so cute about it rolling it to one side it suddenly becomes clear to me that it looks even more like its red-skinned neighbours sculpted heads scorched by the sun arranged on a book-shelf, wouldn’t that be best? this stone lives over 6000 kilometres from where I live it would be one of a kind in China I decide furtively skirting the warning signs stone hidden in my back-pack back at the hotel I find I cannot sleep as if what I have brought back with me is a ball of wild-fire its body unsuited to the shampoo smell of my room in the middle of the night it broke through its shell I danced with a fever in my arms tossing backwards and forwards I was thinking to myself how I could get it past Customs? it was just a stone so why did I want to take it with me? why? it wasn’t gems lanolin beauty creme postage stamps no a stone I just couldn’t work it out was it because it looked like the local indigenous people because it might have hatched out wings? could it perhaps transform some McDonalds fat man in Customs momentarily into a detective with a penchant for solving mysteries? unshakeably seeking out the motive behind it? and connecting me with less savoury aspects of this world for example with an out-of-date slave trader? I really liked this stone primitive divine force how it moved me everywhere you turn the world is artificial long ago I become numb insensitive at the same time I was terrified that this slight act of theft may have offended some King of the Rock among the stone heaps of Kata Tjuta I couldn’t shake the feeling of His power He was no manager of scenic spots He collected no entrance tickets silent concealed but supreme ruler over all sometimes an curly-headed aborigine with shining eyes would smile at me, surreptitiously squatting down in the bush another time I was startled by the sight of a scarred, motley lizard crawling down a tree-root looking like an aged sovereign walking his royal carpet I was so scared I broke out in a cold sweat in Australia like an emu I slept a night with a stone in my embrace it made me suspicious of my own shadow I trembled with fear I went and put it outside the hotel in a wasteland that is another wasteland I had moved one small object on the surface of this planet 18 kilometres towards the south-west and in doing so had sneakily altered the order of the world but I hope my mischief brings me no misfortune 2002 |
|
© Translation: 2003, Simon Patton |