Painting by Xie Changyong from Leshan Normal University
Ma Yongbo and other poets and painters went to see the Giant Leshan Buddha, which is very close to Meizou, poet Su Dongpo’s hometown, who Ma Yongbo also met in volume 1 of his Poetry Road Trip. 5th May saw the official start of summer 立夏 Li Xia, the 7th Solar Term of the Chinese Solar calendar, there are 24 solar terms in total. Photo: Ma Yongbo with Gong Gaixiong and painter Xie Changyong.
Ancient people carved the Giant Leshan Buddha here on the mountain, at the confluence of three rivers, where it often flooded, in an attempt to suppress the floods.
The Leshan Giant Buddha, also known as Lingyun Giant Buddha, is located on the east bank of the Minjiang River in the south of Leshan City, Sichuan Province, next to Lingyun Temple, near the confluence of the Dadu River, Qingyi River and Minjiang River. The Buddha is a seated statue of Maitreya Buddha, 71 meters high, and is the largest cliff-carved statue in China.
The Leshan Giant Buddha was carved in the first year of Kaiyuan in the Tang Dynasty (713) and completed in the nineteenth year of Zhenyuan (803), which took about ninety years. The scenic area consists of Lingyun Mountain, Mahaoyan Tomb, Wuyou Mountain, and the giant reclining Buddha, with a sightseeing area of about 8 square kilometers. The scenic area gathers the essence of Leshan’s landscape and humanities. It belongs to the Emeishan National Scenic Area. It is a well-known scenic tourist destination and a part of the world cultural and natural dual heritage Emeishan-Leshan Giant Buddha.
Chinese link:
https://baike.weixin.qq.com/v8025.htm?scene_id=3&sid=15945851692699833642&ch=s1s
You Are Your Own Distance 你是你自己的远方
For many people, you are the distance,
they believe you have already arrived,
in a world with scenery they can’t imagine,
but you are always in your own body.
The green mountains, clear waters, deserts and clouds you’ve seen
all become distant places you can never reach again
even if you return there
they still cannot become real,
like a sailboat, going farther and farther on the vast sea
yet it seems to be slowly sinking
you are the distant place you cannot reach
you live in a place where you are not
you travel motionlessly, like an empty seat,
neither can you reach any external things
they are just tides, not belonging to any reefs
also, you cannot go deeper inside yourself
or wear the weather inside out like an old sweater.
You don’t exist in yourself,
you are everything you experience
the night storms, the clear sky in the distance
you call, and the one who answers you
is always a strange neighbour
you are a door without a door frame or hinges,
opening and closing with a distant slam
you exist between here and far away,
like a soft measuring tape,
continuously measuring, folding, and shortening,
but you can never compress the distance into a pinecone,
a withered, dark yellow universe, rolling into the distance,
your own emptiness amidst the fallen leaves.
28 September 2016,
by Ma Yongbo 马永波
Translated by Ma Yongbo 马永波 and Helen Pletts 海伦·普莱茨 2024
你是你自己的远方 you are your own distance 马永波
对于很多人，你就是远方
他们以为你已经抵达了
他们无法想象的世界和风景
而你始终在自己的身体里
你见过的青山碧水大漠云天
都成了你再也抵达不了的远方
哪怕你再一次去到那里
它们依然无法变得真实
就像一艘帆船，在茫茫海上
越来越远，却好像在慢慢沉没
你是你抵达不了的远方
你在你所不在的地方生活
你一动不动地旅行，像一个空座位
你既抵达不了任何外在的事物
它们只是潮水，不属于礁石
你也无法深入自己的内部
把里面的天气，像旧毛衣反穿起来
你本身并不存在
你是你所经历的一切
入夜的风雨，远方的晴空
你呼唤，回答你的
总是一个陌生的邻居
你是没有门框和枢轴的门
你打开，你关闭，远方都会砰然一响
你在此地和远方之间
如同一根松软的卷尺
不停地丈量，折叠和缩短
但永远无法将距离压缩成一个球果
一个枯萎的暗黄色的宇宙，在落叶中
向远方和你自己的虚空滚去
2016.9.28
quietness in stone faces—for Yongbo —after watching footage taken by Yongbo at Leshan Giant Buddha
the warm red stone is holding our heads
in the red day of an open seam,
our steadying bodies are swallowed by the red cliffs.
Our heads resembling serious black insects
weaving through stone corridors
nodding, checking foot holds. The rock acknowledges us,
trying to untie its stoney heart through the gaps
of a carved zig zagging path,
if we are chiselling at rock it will defeat the oncoming waves.
Absolute faith is the busy pre-occupation of a spinning world;
here a blade becomes a new belief.
The confluence of three rivers creates massive energy,
three great minds thinking at once; connecting hands tie in.
A small boat is subjected to three different ideas at once;
left travelling between their decisions,
silence in water is unwritten.
7th May 2025
Response Poetry By Helen Pletts 海伦·普莱茨
Response Poetry Translated by Ma Yongbo 马永波
《石头面孔中的静谧》
——观永波于乐山大佛所摄影像有感 马永波 译
温热的红石托着我们的头颅
在裂隙张开的赤色白昼里
我们沉稳的身躯被红色崖壁吞噬
头颅有如严肃的黑色昆虫
我们穿梭于石廊之间
颔首，审视脚下的立足点。
岩石回应着我们
试图通过凿出的之字形狭径
解开它石质的心结
若我们凿击岩石，它将击退袭来的浪潮
绝对的信仰是旋转世界忙碌的执念
这里，一把刻刀将成为新的信念
三江汇流激荡出磅礴的能量
三颗伟大的心灵同时思索；
手与手紧紧相连
一叶小舟同时受制于三种不同的意志
在它们的决断之间漂流
而水中的寂静尚未书写。
2025年5月7日
海伦·普莱茨（Helen Pletts）
Working closely with Ma Yongbo on translation, poetry and their unique response poetry since February 2024
During his road trip, Ma Yongbo regularly sends footage, photographs and updates to Helen.
Photo: Poets and Painters drinking tea on the riverbank taken by Ma Yongbo at Leshan
Ma Yongbo 马永波 was born in 1964.
https://mayongbopoetry.wordpress.com/
Since the age of 27 he has published 7 poetry collections: Red Bird (Hong Kong Wen Guang Publishing House, 1991), Summer Played at Two Speeds (Tangshan Publishing House, Taiwan, 1999), Journey in Words (Huacheng Publishing House, 2015),Geography of the Self (Zhejiang Gongshang University Press, 2018),Untied Boat (China International Broadcasting Press, 2024),A Grateful Ode to Eternity (Long poetry collection, Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House, 2024). He is a Chinese scholar focused on translating and teaching Anglo-American poetry and prose including the work of Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Williams and Ashbery. He recently published a complete translation of Moby Dick, which has sold over half a million copies. He teaches at Nanjing University of Science and Technology. The Collected Poems of Ma Yongbo (four volumes, Eastern Publishing Centre, 2024) comprising 1600 poems, celebrate 40 years of writing poetry.
马永波出生于1964年。自27岁起，他已出版了7本诗集：《红鸟》（香港文光出版社，1991年）、《以两种速度播放的夏天》（台湾唐山出版社，1999年）、《词语中的旅行》（花城出版社，2015年）、《自我的地理学》（浙江工商大学出版社，2018年）、《不系之舟》（中国国际广播出版社，2024年）、《致永恒的答谢词》（长诗集，四川文艺出版社，2024年）。他是一位专注于翻译和教授英美诗歌和散文的中国学者，包括狄金森、惠特曼、史蒂文斯、庞德、威廉斯和阿什贝利的作品。他最近出版了《白鲸》的全译本，销量已超过50万册。他在南京理工大学任教。《马永波诗歌总集》（四卷本，东方出版中心，2024年）共收录1600首诗，庆祝他诗学探索40周年。
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