Parasite

Like the hollow bamboo swaying,
self-reliance bends—
parasite plants climb,
they bloom, they bear fruit,
they gift fragrance to mankind,
ancient joy everlasting.
But on the body of the nation
dust and dirt keep gathering.
A single line of socialism
crosses the border,
rolling downhill
wherever it finds a slope.
Humanity’s laws of growth—
walking through barren lands,
far, far away,
until the eye meets
fields of green grain.
There the breath clings,
there life’s winter harvest ripens.
And yet disaster lurks within.
The heart has no shelter,
nowhere is there an open sky,
no freedom for thought.
Only a hollow lament—
choked down,
like conquering a stony country,
melting its ice bit by bit.
To live parasitic is to give and take,
to demand the right to land,
to seize it like a nomadic tribe
that conquers field after field.
By shifts of place, time, and vessel,
new earth is always sought—
for history holds no homeland,
only the envy of historians.
Parasite plants, still—
they offer joy,
they build humanity’s towers,
they bloom, they bear fruit,
they gift fragrance to mankind,
enduring, eternal.
Themes and subjects,
the cosmos itself—
this continent of crowded men
has sought shelter in the lap of mountains,
by the edge of seas,
in endless herds.
Thus thrives—
parasitic human civilization.