Festival Seating

Landscape Over Zero

by Bei Dao

it's hawk teaching song to swim
it's song tracing back to the first wind

we trade scraps of joy
enter family from different directions

it's a father confirming darkness
it's darkness leading to that lightning of the classics

a door of weeping slams shut
echoes chasing its cry

it's a pen blossoming in lost hope
it's a blossom resisting the inevitable route

it's love's gleam waking to
light up landscape over zero

3 thoughts on “Festival Seating

  1. I don’t know how YOU felt about this photo, but I have been back to it probably 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 times (seriously) and am very intrigued by it. It is SO loaded for me that I hardly know where to start. And THAT may be exactly the point of the photo. Where do I start from here. It’s like a clean slate or empty space and now what do I want to do with it?
    It also knocks the breath out of me because it’s both frightening in that everything is gone, the window and door are boarded up, there’s no paint, no color, no sign, no words, no plants, no animals….nothing. At the same time there is sense of peace about that as if I am the only one left…and I can do and be whatever I want because no one is there to discourage me or stop me.
    Then there is that ONE dark door beckoning because it is the only real color (green) and it is darker and set back deep into the wall, almost calling: “Do you dare enter?” And yet because it’s dark it might not be a place I need to go. But it’s definitely trying to lure me in. BUT then there is that really light white spot on the bench back that makes me feel happy and sunny so I decide I won’t go into the dark door; it’s not right for me; it’s done. I will sit on the white bench and think about where I want to go from here. There’s a whole world in front of me.
    Thank you RiverSpirit for such amazing photos. : )

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