A Strong Man
Rising from a dune, you brush away the storm
The howling sound quiets down in the wild
The brown desert is flooded with the twilight
Your camel's dead, your mouth dry and bloodless
Sounding the bell in your heart
Making you the extension of the camel's life
You trek ahead to where the whirlwind has fled difficut walk
Trudging forward just for existence
Not for annotating vague concepts in aesthetics
Praise comes only after you get out of the wild
After you become an indomitable example
But now you are in a place that nobody knows
Writing a most rudimentary and unforgettable epic
Like man on his feet for the first time
What's more, you carry the seeds of trees
The cool shade of which your predecessors failed to sow
You totter along, more clumsy than a camel
Facing thirst, hunger, fatigue, loneliness
And packs of wolves fiercer than loneliness
Your sheepskin coat trails on the sand like a nebula
Your eyes pierce into the horizon
You nourish yourself with the spring of longing
Your arms drawing an arch between heaven and earth
Just like a gigantic god with dancing tresses.
You are unaware of your location
It is on the western plateau of China
The terrain under your feet is a slope
Inclining from west to east inch by inch
Mediocre romances have slid and rolled away
Merging into scenic spots, dikes and beaches
There is the gurgle of frivolous girls
Who always jeer at your old-fashioned sheepskin coat
As well as the primitive rhythm of the loess plateau
But you haven't heard it (the pitch of it is too low)
You only forge on an elevation of three thousand metre
Your head touching the white clouds
Completing your lofty image with composure
There'll be a picture hanging somewhere spacious
Of a camel, yak, or the Tianshan Mountains
Or else a ridge in the Qilian Mountains
When people sing their praises of you
You remain nonchalant with a faint smile
(Just like when you rose from the dune)
Displaying the completeness of a strong man..
- Yang Mu
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