Pile Driver (By Yan Li)

by Yan Li (translated by D Mair) All the slander The jealousy All varieties of praise or contempt All the things people do to each other Set a pile driver in motion Pounding pylons for the edifice of happiness Yesterday I was pounded into bedrock Another ten feet or so More weight-bearing strength got driven into me So the house that will rise on this foundation Can be a few more stories high I've thought of a use for the extra floors I build They can be a museum for pile-driver heads The biggest of them will be sculpted out of language Because it has strength No mechanical device can match