Day 17 - “Accomplices” Bei Dao (translated by Donald Finkel)

[druidspell]

After all those years
mica glints in the mud,
evil as it is bright,
tiny suns in vipers' eyes.

Branch roads appear and disappear
in the hands of trees.
Where did that fawn go?
Only cemeteries could assuage
this desolation, like tiny cities.

Freedom is only the distance
between the hunter and his prey.
As we turn to look,
a bat describes a sweeping arc
across the vast canvas of our inheritance
and vanishes into the dusk.

Nor are we free of guilt.
Long since, in history's mirror,
we became accomplices,
awaiting the day we might
seep down through the layers of stone
into subterranean pools
to contemplate darkness again.