Wind Crossing Grasses: Poems from China’s Dragon Rivers

This folio brings together new poetry from the high mountains, steppes, and grassland of China’s west (Tibet-Qinghai), southwest (Sichuan, Yunnan), northwest (Gansu, Ningxia), and north (Inner Mongolia), following the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers’ upper reaches from their headwaters. Birthed from the same source on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the rivers have served as borders and forts for the state, as well as paths for commercial and cultural exchanges, such as the Silk Road. They also host the world’s richest resources, including water and minerals. Both rivers’ upper reaches pass through arid areas of high plateaus, turning the Gobi Desert into oases of cities and towns. Because of their vastness, altitude, and arid climate, these regions are the least populated by humans. These areas of breathtaking beauty are where plants and animals thrive, providing endless inspiration to poets and artists.

Twenty-five hundred years ago, Confucius traveled along the Yellow and Yangtze with his students, collecting 风 (wind)—poems and music—to compile 诗经 (Shijing), the first poetry anthology in China. The rivers run across China like dragons. The poets sing along the shores, as the rivers’ heartbeats and wings, as time keepers. Today I retrace their steps on foot and by boat, train, and car to meet the poets from along the Yellow and Yangtze, to collect a new wind from the ancient land, to bring this sound and music across the oceans.

All water flows down mountains. All rivers run to the sea.

If you follow the mountains and rivers, you will find the poets.

They sing and dance with dragons.

Their songs awaken the dragons, lifting mountains and rivers to the sky.

That’s what poetry is: a wind, a leaf of grass that ties time and space together.

It’s about time we hear their songs in English.

These songs follow the rivers. If they move you, if you want to hear and feel more, please do not hesitate to follow the two rivers. It’s the only way to know China.