Forgetting To Remember (Yan Li)

by Yan Li
(translated by Denis Mair)

Forgotten is the sound of legs crashing
Against green undergrowth and flower scent
When I somehow strode into that special space
Landscape paintings have long resulted from impacts
That could splash up new dapplings of dark and dawn
Where value is dependent on green succulence
But I heeded the summons to come out of that painting,
back to a bustling wharf
To turn away from surfaces of form and brush strokes
Back into life with its nasty encounters

Literati artists expended so much effort
To transform an invisible, inner past
To something external and present to our eyes
So we can enjoy the annually increasing value of its decay
Exactly when I lost patience for this
Is now forgotten too

I know before long I will also forget
What I went through so fists of the marketplace
Could beat enough courage into me to create profitable art
But there’s a saying about this I’ll remember all my life:
“When the scar heals, the pain can be forgotten”