Mother's Cave

Mother's Cave

⸺ Tribute to the great mother of Mr Gao Zhisheng (1)

The Chinese version read by Qiyu here https://t.co/zGu1xXXfq0

(音頻由 希望之聲 晨間話題節目主持人 齊玉 朗誦、提供)

Cave dwellings, no matter if simple or luxurious

So long as it's the residence of mother's lifetime

She is the embodiment of mother

and is the mother herself

In the mother's cave, there're oil lamps

But, more often, there's also darkness

There's laughter, as well as sorrow and crying

There're lullabies, as well as wolves' howling

It smells like wine and meat, as well as like stinky tofu

There're red cotton-padded quilts

as well as dirty shirts, on the bed-stove

So long as mother lives in

the cave is like a heaven

The raccoon and the old rabbit come out (2)

of the cave, so do the fox and chicken

Only when a rooster crows, can you know it's time to get up

Not only holding the sun in her both hands

the mother's cave can hold the whole universe

as in Buddhism, there're tens thousands of worlds

 in a grain of loess

The first and the last Emperors laughed and chatted in the cave

And one got the other to drink by a game of finger-guessing

While Chen Sheng and Wu Guang served them with the osmanthus wine (3)

Yuan Shikai and Mao Zedong, outside the cave (4)

Were salivating, and worshipping on their knees

The bones left on their plates are delicious meals for the raccoons

This is the mother's cave, since Pangu created the heaven and earth

Nüwa amended the heaven's pillars and Yi shot down nine suns (5)

Mother's tears make the muddy water in the Yellow River clear

stop the water flow in the Yangtze, and let mountains to bow their heads

Mother's tears are the milk for children, the morning drink

of the Empress Dowager Cixi, and the oil of thousands of lamps

Mother's milk waters the rapeseed fields

also feeds the red foxes that come out of a wolf ditch (6)

The mother's wizened breasts have also fed lakes and seas

Mother plucks stars from the sky to illuminate the cave

also picks up the moon in the water

The water of the Yellow River from the mother's womb

having crossed thousands of years,

Flows into the Yangtze, and rushes to the Pacific

Mother's eyes of cataract, in a deep blue ocean

see clearly the centre of the universe and the moment

when the beginning of universe exploded

In mother's eyes, there is only blue sky without haze

Mother's cave is a time tunnel:

Seven and a half circles around the earth in just one second

and thousands of years in just a wink

From the Himalayas to Mt Tai, in just one step

so is from the Tibetan Plateau to Alps

When the mother's heart beats, it's like volcanic breathing

it's unpredictable when it will erupt

When the mother's blood flows, it's like the waves of sea

It's unimaginable when it will reach the Plateau of Loess

Mother, in the cave, has given birth to a nation

but sometimes only to one child, and the milk fills the big-heads

At certain time, mother gave birth to the rulers

of Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, yet more often

she gives birth to a quarter of population on the earth

Never short of one Emperor Qin, or two

Mother's big feet, of leviathan

walk cross thousands of rivers and mountains

leave behind love and resentment

joy and sorrow, and flowers and weeds

Mother's feet were once bound with cloth

inside the cave, hard to move even an inch

and she'll get lost if outside of the door

This is the mother, and this is the world

No matter how to paint it so long as there's enough ink

No matter how to sing it so long as the notes are hit

No matter how to write it so long as following the God's handwriting (7)

There's no jump in the poetry of mother's cave

nor any blank space in the realm of mother's cave

All is in a straightforward and plain language ⸺

Great men were born in succession in caves

so long as it's the cave where mother lived

He might be an elected president even if no desire to be

O! Mother, before her death, was looking forward to

seeing her wandering child find the light of cave

O! Mother, in heaven, blesses her missing child

To trek and find a safe and smooth road

Footnote:

1. Gao Zhisheng: My Commoner Mother https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/5/3/18/n854721.htm
2. Raccoon: The CCP and its leaders and members; Old rabbit: Mr Gao Zhisheng calls himself.
3. the Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rebellion against the first Emperor Qin in 209-8 BC
4. Yuan Shikai (1859-1916), the first none-elected president of the Republic of China in 1912 after the Qing Dynasty, and soon died after he restored himself as an emperor in 1916. Mao Zedong (1893-1976), the de facto first emperor of the communist China.
5. Pangu, Nüwa and Yi, all regarded as "creators" of the heaven and earth according to some ancient Chinese myths.
6. The red fox, the same metaphor as the raccoon.
7. Gao Zhisheng: History is the handwriting of God https://www.chinaaid.net/2017/08/blog-post_22.html