Describe a family member.
When you are very young, he or she is very tall. As you get older, he or she becomes a manageable size, but tiny new one’s sprout up, and then you start to shrink and the tiny ones cease to be tiny and catch up and surpass one in height.
Enraged, I lean on the rail as rain ceases.
I look skyward, and sigh -- then roar.
My grand legacy has crumbled to dust:
A journey of thirty years and 8,000 li.
Young men, don't let regret come with gray hair!
The shame of Jingkang lingers -- a foul taste
We Generals must wash from our mouths.
Let's charge our chariots through Helan Pass
To feast on the flesh of our foes & drink their blood.
Only then can we return home with honor.
In Chinese, the poem is entitled 滿江紅 (Man Jiang Hong,) “The Whole River, Red”:
怒髮衝冠，憑欄處，瀟瀟雨歇。
抬望眼，仰天長嘯，壯懷激烈。
三十功名塵與土，八千里路雲和月。
莫等閒白了少年頭，空悲切。
靖康恥，猶未雪；
臣子恨，何時滅？
駕長車踏破賀蘭山缺！
壯志飢餐胡虜肉，笑談渴飲匈奴血。
待從頭收拾舊山河，朝天闕。
Have you seen a tree bleed?
Yes. I've seen a tree bleed.
It bled bright red arterial blood...
or sap --
but not that sticky, very viscous
kind of sap that one knows from Maples.
This was the consistency of blood,
as well as its color.
It's disconcerting to see
the scratched bark of a tree
ooze a fluid so blood-like.
It makes one question
one's assumptions,
such as whether a tree feels:
a scratch or cut or the nail
pounded into its trunk to
hang something for one's
momentary convenience.
And when I see lover's initials
carved into a tree, I now can't help
but wonder how the lovers would feel
about the tree's initials being carved
into their flesh.
blood drips from an unmoving finger into the clear creek
Tiger Riding for Beginners 