Table of Contents

Self—Portrait
My Reply
My Tribesmen Conversing on the Element of Fire
The Soliloquy of a Harmonica
Contrast
A Fighting Bull Growing Old
A Fighting Bull on the Brink of Death
The Hands of a Mother
River Black
Headscarf
The Old Man Who Makes Harmonica
The Song of the Yi People
Gratitude to a River
To Myself
Listening to Requiem
Interpretation
Bharal in the Gulilada Valley
Rhythm of My Tribe
Lullaby
Sentiments Elusive
Rhapsody in Black
Rocks
Deities in My Homeland
Moments in Time
Fleeting Fragments
In the Mountains
Buckwheat
The Buried Words
The Invisible Man
The Sound of Bimo
The Horse—Rider
The Horse Saddle
The First Love
The Final Summons
Variation on a Fantasy
Dedication in an Album
A Migrant Tribe
Remembrances at Dusk
Portrait in Autumn
Young Lady at Butuo
Remembering the Past
A Dedication
The Colors That the Yi People See in Their Dreams
The Night
Fluctuations Invisible
Just Because...
The Sun
The Soul's Abode
To a Young Girl in Butuo
Untitled
A Child's Prayer
Mono！ogue by a Huntsman's Child
An Enduring Pledge
A Huntsman's Trail
Yearning for Love
The Last Legend
Cup Made out of Eagle Claw
The Whistle of the River Deer
The Statue in the Land
Dusk
The Lugu Lake
The Duluohe Dance
Song for Mother
To the American Indians
Anticipation
The Shaluo River
Daji Shaluo，My Nativeland
If...
Waiting
The Hunting Rifle
Farewe（l ro the Daliang Mountain
The Hound Sold and Betrayed
The Old Man and the Cuckoo
The Old Singer
An Old Man's Ballad
The Native Hue
Suppose
The Hidden Head
Yellow is Always Beautiful
People May Ask...
I Want to Let You Know
Peacefulness
A Goat
The Stranger
To the Enemies of Salvatore Quasimodo
The Letter
A Day in Autumn
A Gypsy
Christ and the General
The Eyes of Autumn
The Words of Welcome from this World
The Last Drunkard
The Last Reef Rock
A Deer Turning Around
The Earthen Wall
Ode to the Lndigenous Peoples
The Homeland of Georgia O'Keeffe
Looking Back on the 20th Century
Remembrances of Youth
Gratitucie to the Earth
In Love with Them
Freedom
Dedicated to the Year 1987
Between Despair and Hope
Standing in Awe of Life
Dedicated to the Rivers in this World
The Little Train in My Memory
The Mediterranean Sea
The Sun in Rome
The South
At a Moment Like This
The Island
Venice of Water and Glass
Payirig a Visit to Dante
Hair
The Son of Rivers
Untitled
However...
Perhaps I Have Never Forgotten...
A Dedication to Those
Once，I...
The Discovery of Water and Life
Tiwanaku
The Mask
Motherland
The Face
Truth
Grandma of Roses
For I Once had a Dream
The Starry Sky Over the Gianaa Holy Marnyi
Two Forms of a Poem
I've Written my Poems in the Space Between
Heaven and Earth
Mulan
The Alpaca
The Procedures of Time
The Coca of the Indians
The Magic Eagle in Condor
The Contuta Flower
The Fireplace with Dim Flames
Identity
Flames and Words
No Need for Your Forgiveness
The Poems of Giuseppe Ungaretti
Right here Waiting for You
Trees in Jilebute
Your Breaths
A Traveler of the World
At the Cemetery
Silence
The Origins of Poetry
The Generation of Our Fathers
The Snow Leopard
The Divided Self
Through the River of Time
The Shadow
The Day will Surely Come
At the Graveyard of Cesar Vallejo
To My Mother
Interrogation
The Immortal Muse
To Marina Sweitayawa

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Self - Portrait


In the thickening twilight, by the mountain ridge, wind whispers
to a child:
When I am gone, there will be a fairytale awaiting you yonder.
Oh, babe, leave behind your name on this land,
Because this is where you will die in pride.”
—Epigraph





In this land, I am the history chronicled in the language
of the Yi people
A new - born baby by a woman unable to cut the umbilical
cord
My name carries anguish
My name carries beauty
My name carries hope
I am a poem of masculinity
Nurtured through thousands of years
By a yarn - spinning woman
My ancient father
A man of men
Is known as Zhixia Aalu to all
And my mother of eternal youth
Is the proud singer of this land
The river that gently flows nearby in silence
Is my lifelong lover
The beauty of beauties
Who is addressed by all as Xiama Aaniu
I have died one thousand deaths
A man who always sleeps facing left
I have died one thousand deaths
A woman who always sleeps facing right
I am a messenger of friendship who comes from afar
Resurrected in the wake of thousands of funerals
I am that trembling consonant
Uttered by my mother at the pitch of her voice
As thousands of funerals reach their climaxes
These are what encapsulate the person I am
But I am more than these encapsulations
Because in me lies the age - old conflict between good
and evil
From time immemorial
I am the descendant of love and fantasy
Fostered through thousands of years of fruition
I am the matrimony that has existed since great antiquity
But with still no end in sight
In all truth I am an epitome and incarnation
Of all the allegiances
Of all the betrayals
Of all that is living
Of all that is dead
Oh, the world out there, please heed my answer to thee
I am the native son of the Yi people