J.H. Prynne in China

i.
To begin with, you were on your own. Down
the rabbit hole, ideas welling; the fun, the fear of that.
From one word to another, as the gifted child saw,
was rowing between islands. Two or more
islands were cranes, fishing companionably close.
No special pattern to cranes. But feed in, not setting
but space, as the Chinese know space, and one day
the islands rise in a spray of swallows, godwits headed
for the far rim of the earth. Readable, after a fashion.

Then came the time when you opened an index and
found there were two. Manichaean, then, the Chinese word?
No, nothing like that, just two arms of the track
they employ for hunting it down. You land
on the radical first. Oblique as a held spear,
quivering in shafts of live fur or disclosing
the balance inherent in wood, etching a shoulder
of roof. Meaning and mimicry blent
in a shower of dots.     
                             You cross to part two.
Strokes line up by number under each root.
Brief units of sense, of sound, incoherent on their own.
To break open before you rebuild –
does that ring a bell? Fifteen strokes and counting.
The fragment glitters into not-quite-meaning
before the left side reaches out a hand
and there’s the sparkle of ignition. So, is this
where you got it, your passion for syntax undone?

ii.
Words start in an underworld, its byways ready to be mined.
Those at home in the dusty tunnels of old texts discover
webs of origin. Endlessly paraded, the sources:
historical and legendary, cautionary, inspiring.
It’s how you draw them out. Allusion shines its light
from the side. Examples only seem to strengthen.
Driven to re-invent, the best push on the door.
Du Fu did it, drunk with indignation, mad
with a fire that undoes structure. Lines
 
splinter under their load. Never a time when words
don’t fracture. They fissure on the rack of politics.
No such thing as tense. It’s true. Only last century,
small red-guard words disrupting everything. Revolution
carried too far. (But do we want what followed? Across
our planet calculation yields a crooked history.)
Mao was surely and severely wrong, but nonetheless
knew this. From contradictions arise new patches
of map. Grasp and apply. You take him up.

And then it rains, blotting out hardly the sun; there was never
much brightness. What is left? Young untried outlines.
Remember, from one word to another is rowing between
islands. Neither word new, nor brave, but together –
I know how this sounds – a universe, then. You,
as always, on the brink. We give ourselves to contiguity.
And the payoff? In the humdrum branches, in lieu
of revelation, are lumps of catch-your-breath
crystal. No more handholds. Just let go.