Eastern Mystery——By Ma Huairong

[mahuairong]

Footprints overlapped with each other or one another,
vanishing altogether in front of an ancient tomb.
It was believed the fox went into the cell by stealth.
But where had the hunter himself gone?

Here comes another snow.
Where do the footprints further go?
The tomb seems to be the end of the world.
Every exit to future is covered with snow.

The village sages reckon it a myth
or a mysterious whirlwind that has made it so.
The policeman hold that the whereabouts
of the hunter are an extraordinary case.
Keep it a secret and never let the outsiders know.

To be, or not to be?
A question mark hangs over the hamlet.
Doubts like clouds float above roofs and haystacks.
Rumors spread among the nearby villages.

On every morning stages the same program.
The secrecy is kept but the news go.
The people in a feudal tribe are full of imaginations.
The publicity work is done double by mouths and speakers.

The myth brings the villagers blessings or woes?
The tourists all over the country flock to the tomb.
Among them are scientists, anthropologists, zoologists
and UN officials who have seen much of the world
and proclaim another Wonder of this miraculous globe.

Lucky are the dwellers on this mountain slope.
They cut and fell their forests for huts and cottages.
They trade their tractors and cattle for tourism.
Blueprint for a skiing site is drawn on the other slope.
For permanent purpose a base camp is here put up.

The villagers no longer gather, feed or plow.
They rent houses and learn to infuse local teas.
All the herbs and leaves in the mountains,
without exception, have become national treasures.

Without belief in this mundane world,
the villagers are all born materialists.
They never harbor such a wild wish
of making a easy living from Mother Nature.
Besides poke, mahjong, and chess,
Their only interest is to sit by the stove,
conceiving of evils and counting notes.

Reform and opening-up are like a never-setting sun
shining high up and up in the midday sky.
But the snows on the slopes never melt away.
They are piled up and up as the footprints overlap.

Who and what on earth helped the villagers
to at last shake off poverty and acquire wealth?
The God?
or the designer general of the Opening up and Reform?
or their fathers who centuries ago sited the village
and their tombs with good geomantic potency?

On his death bed the village head told the truth:
There was never such a thing as a hunter and a fox.
It was he who had been suffering from insomnia
followed his pat to the ancient tomb each winter night.
And then he held it up in arms and prayed that
God would forgive him his blunders and crimes.
After that he went backwards cautiously and quietly
step by step as he had come to the village.
_________________
You see me, you lose me