Wild boars lead us up to a mountain in the city.
We leave the houses behind and come to another world,
almost as quickly as turning around. Silence in the mountain,
autumn is shedding its own light.
Trees have stood there for a long time
forming a forest, becoming the view for windows.
If there is a center, a heart, in the forest,
it must have been waiting for the boars to jump up suddenly,
pushing, biting, and smashing each other in their own territory.
It will see the fear and become a real forest.
We walk on a path with our ideals,
sometimes juvenile, sometimes aged,
sometimes in the forest, sometimes outside the forest.
Wild boars have not appeared yet.
We walk on our feet, legs, arms and shoulders.
We have not walked out of ourselves yet.
Shu Buyu (1981) is an emerging star in central China. Born in the rural Qianjing, Hubei province, birth name Yang Jumei, Shu Buyu started writing poetry in 2012 and soon published two books of poems,Youthful Travel and Growing Out of the Cornfield. She won the 2014 Ten Best Young Internet Poets, the 2017 Yangtze River Young Poet Award, 2017 Yangtze River Journal Literature Award, 2018 Chen Zi-Ang Poetry Award, 2019 Qu Yuan Art Award and 2022 Yangtze Literature Award. Her pen name “Shu Buyu” means “silent millet”.
Mimi Chang is a Chinese poet living in the USA. She has published widely in literary journals in China. She translates poems and literary essays and organizes the annual Hu Shi Poetry Award in China.