these years, I have only one dream
in this dream, I do only one thing
build ships, build ships, build ships
in order to take this dream, to make it perfect
again and again, I, sweat dripping heavily
swing an axe, saw, plane, chisel
— these sharp objects
Now, I wake up. face full of tears
in my dream, I will always owe
a piece, to the vast and soft sea
Zhang Ergun (Zhang Changchun) was born in Shanxi in 1982 and finished middle school there. He has worked as part of Geological Team 217 as part of the Shanxi Geological Exploration Bureau for the past 15 years. He started writing poems in 2010 and has published a number of them. In 2014, he published a collection called “Wilderness” (旷野; kuang ye) and was selected as Poet of the Year by Poetry Weekly (诗歌周刊; shi ge zhou kan) and “New Poet of the Year” by Poetry magazine (诗刊; shi kan) in 2019.