Forever Meeting Joy: Meditating on the Past at Beigu Tower in Jingkou

A thousand years of rivers and hills; the hero is nowhere to be found, the place of Sun Zhongmou. Terraces of dance and towers of song—all that splendor has been swept away by wind and rain. The slanting sun on grass and trees, the common lanes and alleys, where men say Jinnu once lived. I think of those days: golden spears and iron horses, a spirit that could swallow ten thousand li like a tiger.

In the Yuanjia years, careless and hasty, he would have made his sacrifice at Langjuxu, and won only a panicked look back toward the north. Forty-three years—in my gaze I still remember it: the beacon fires along the road to Yangzhou. How can I bear to look back? Beneath the shrine of Bili, a flock of sacred crows and the drums of the village sacrifice. Who will ask: Lian Po is old—can he still eat his fill?