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<\/a>The installation of Ai Weiwei: Fault Line<\/em> at the San Juan Islands Museum of Art (2016), curated by Ian Boyden.<\/p><\/div>\n MARCH 1<\/p>\n \u9865 Its etymology invites the mind: <\/p>\n MARCH 2<\/p>\n \u51b0 The archeologists pulled an ancient stone Ice had been tasked to tame the spring floods They chose him because his name was a frozen river. And after he split the river he took the bones Ice placed these beasts in the river Part of us is always melting, For two thousand years they burned incense, Among the rooms of national treasure, Not finding it the river spills its banks <\/p>\n MARCH 4<\/p>\n \u601d\u5b87 Always hovering But what held <\/p>\n MARCH 7<\/p>\n \u5fe0\u4eae Each hour of spring rises over the last notes of snow.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n MARCH 10<\/p>\n \u7fbd\u96ea This name is so quiet. It waits for the wind.<\/p>\n The child\u2019s down pillow still waits for its dreamer.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n MARCH 11<\/p>\n \u5b87\u6db5 A lifetime of letters spilled Helpless to gather them <\/p>\n MARCH 12<\/p>\n \u9cde\u5cf0 They were all born <\/p>\n MARCH 14<\/p>\n \u61f7\u5e73 When we hold a child Around the drum, <\/p>\n MARCH 17<\/p>\n \u6668\u96e8 We blackened the first brush tip to draw this very image. <\/p>\n MARCH 18<\/p>\n \u6cc9\u8aa0 The child-who-was This memory-self was dispersed Strangers to one another, each opened his mouth to speak, at the water\u2019s changes. And then another mouth opened swallowed it whole <\/p>\n MARCH 19<\/p>\n \u96e8\u6ce2 He was born between ridgelines Language flows as water cuts. Ravines filled with waves\u2014 waves of silence, <\/p>\n MARCH 24<\/p>\n \u838e\u838e A moon polished by fine sand <\/p>\n MARCH 29<\/p>\n \u96e8\u4f73 It fell impartially It flowed as both river and prophecy.<\/p>\n It was here the mothers gathered, its message irreducible.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n MARCH 31<\/p>\n \u6d77 His name was both a boat A white boat dissolved into the white horizon.<\/p>\n Read more from Ian Boyden’s “A Forest of Names” in the following links:<\/strong><\/p>\n “Introduction to ‘A Forest of Names'”<\/a><\/p>\n A Forest of Names \u2014 January selections<\/a><\/p>\n A Forest of Names \u2014 February selections<\/a><\/p>\n A Forest of Names \u2014 March selections<\/a><\/p>\n A Forest of Names \u2014 April selections<\/a><\/p>\n A Forest of Names \u2014 May selections<\/a><\/p>\n A Forest of Names \u2014 June selections<\/a><\/p>\n A Forest of Names \u2014 July selections<\/a><\/p>\n A Forest of Names \u2014 August selections<\/a><\/p>\n A Forest of Names \u2014 September selections<\/a><\/p>\n A Forest of Names \u2014 October selections<\/a><\/p>\n A Forest of Names \u2014 November selections<\/a><\/p>\n
\nLuminous White<\/p>\n
\nthe luminous setting of a piece of paper.<\/p>\n
\nIce<\/p>\n
\nfrom a hollow in the mud, one of the five divine beasts
\ncarved by Ice, a man who walked the earth
\nwhen we were not separate from it.<\/p>\n
\nthat carried away fields, temples, houses, and children
\nwhen the river could not fall as fast
\nas the weight of its heart.<\/p>\n
\nHe carved a new channel, split the river in two,
\ncut trees, split stone, sacrificed an entire mountain
\nhome to birds and wild boars.<\/p>\n
\nof the mountain and carved them into Zhulong,
\nboar-dragons whose skin mirrors whirling water
\nand who speak liquid\u2019s language.<\/p>\n
\nto calm the rage of its melting self.
\nSomewhere in the wordless dark
\nhe was aware too of his melting self.\u201d<\/p>\n
\njust as part is always forgetting.
\nThe people cried to the archaeologists to leave
\nthe beast in the mud, at home in the river bank.<\/p>\n
\nrubbed it with oil, poured wine
\nupon its shoulders as it met the spring
\nfloods, and tamed the hands that carved it.<\/p>\n
\nthe river couldn\u2019t find its gods.
\nIts belly misses the vortex of words gods spoke
\nto soothe the river rising with spring melt.<\/p>\n
\nfrantic to call it home.<\/p>\n
\nUniverse of Thought<\/p>\n
\nlike a field suspended
\nabove the heart.<\/p>\n
\nthe thought aloft
\nwas no match
\nfor the shelter
\nof its finality.<\/p>\n
\nResonant to the Center of the Heart<\/p>\n
\nbrings yet another color of sound.
\nThe valley\u2019s ringing<\/p>\n
\nFeather Snow<\/p>\n
\nSaturated Universe<\/p>\n
\ninto the Min River.<\/p>\n
\nshe drank the ink-blackened water.<\/p>\n
\nFish Scale Mountain Peak<\/p>\n
\namong dancing stones\u2014
\nlike sparks in dry grass.<\/p>\n
\nHarbor Peace Within the Heart<\/p>\n
\nto the drumbeat within us,
\na scale stands balanced.<\/p>\n
\ndrifts the smoke
\nof another day.<\/p>\n
\nDaybreak Rain<\/p>\n
\nWe haven\u2019t set the brush down since.
\nShe was five.<\/p>\n
\nSpring of Sincerity<\/p>\n
\nstepped from the cage of his name
\nto greet his memory.<\/p>\n
\namong those who remembered him,
\nperhaps as a stray mark somewhere,
\nas a number, as a name on a wall,
\nyet fading, each day fading.<\/p>\n
\nthe child-who-was and his memory
\nlooked at one another,<\/p>\n
\nbut instead of words, water flowed
\nand those who listened gasped<\/p>\n
\nTopaz, tourmaline, glacier-gray moonstone,
\nnow boiling over, now barely a trickle.
\nTopaz, tourmaline, glacier-gray moonstone.
\nHow to listen to,
\nhow to understand such a language?
\nThey dipped their hands into the current,
\nwhat was said washed through their fingers.
\nThey took sips, held the water on their tongues.
\nThey washed their faces,
\nfelt it evaporate from their foreheads.
\nBut they could not understand,
\nthey could not make sense
\nof that which was free of deceit.<\/p>\n
\nand swallowed the conversation\u2014
\ntopaz, tourmaline, glacier-gray moonstone\u2014<\/p>\n
\ninto the broken earth
\nall mouths share.<\/p>\n
\nRain Wave<\/p>\n
\ncarved by centuries of rain,
\nin a ravine carved
\nby those same centuries\u2019 rain.<\/p>\n
\nNames gathered in the raw shadows:
\nWild Ox Ravine
\nPeach Barrier Ravine
\nGrindstone Ravine
\nMouth of the Forest Ravine
\nWave Harbor Drum Ravine
\nGolden Wave Temple Ravine
\nOcean Child Ravine
\nEchoing Water Ravine
\nWhite Mud Ravine<\/p>\n
\nwaves of cedar,
\nwaves of bamboo,
\nwaves of bird song
\nabove the fallen stone,
\nwaves of moss
\nand children\u2019s dreams,<\/p>\n
\nmist, and rain.<\/p>\n
\nKatydid Katydid<\/p>\n
\nlistens to the autumn night,
\nan oscillating song
\nglowing green as the singer\u2019s body.<\/p>\n
\nAuspicious Rain<\/p>\n
\nonly to become a torrent
\nknown as the River of the Mountain People.<\/p>\n
\nlifted handfuls of water,
\nlet it fall as rain again,<\/p>\n
\nOcean<\/p>\n
\nand the medium upon which it drifted.<\/p>\n