White Bones (By Huang Xiang)

By Huang Xiang (translated by Denis Mair) After millions of years In a stratum from ages ago Perhaps someone Will dig into the ground And unearth my white bones Perhaps he will think Of a remote geological era Of history obscured by remoteness in time He'll wonder if these are his ancestor's remains Or the fossil of an ancient form of life When that happens It will occur to him This very heap of bones, on this earth Once made its voice heard Once loved Once hated Once cried Once shouted Once felt passion It will also occur to him This very heap of bones Once had a face that was contorted in pain Once hurled wordless curses with its eyes Once pressed its lips together, drained of blood To endure in silence Once wrote verses to co-exist with moon and stars These are the bones of a poet These bones of a human being harbored hope Yet tasted disappointment and despair These are bones that fought crazily These human bones walked and pushed forward And collided their way through the world These bones were the skeleton of a beaten man Having been shattered they returned to erectness These bones ground their teeth in hatred, down to the gums These are bones that rattled when clenched in resistance These bones saw lightning smite the sky, listened to sounds Of every living thing that grew upon the land After millions of years In a stratum from ages ago When these bones of a human being When these remains I leave are unearthed by Huang Xiang (translated by Denis Mair) By an anthropologist of the future Or a geologist Or an archaeologist Please raise these leavings of water and air Under the shared fire of the sun And seek what made them human