Confluence

Ma Yongbo A deep poem that evokes, in part, the author’s native Chinese landscape.

'Untitled' by Aqeel Solangi (2012. 18''x39''. Acrylic & Graphite on paper)

Staring too long, the original clarity fades into gloom; palaces swaying among waterweeds, old willow roots eaten hollow,

along with the pebble-strewn riverbank, unknowingly rising into cliffs,

this is the lesson you should have learned long ago—

the last thing a river teaches you is how to disappear.

Yet will you stop flowing? Pause, suspended in the ether,

with seeds of light in your head, knowing you will eventually

return from depth and height to a steady plane,

to find that word forever trapped in the present continuous tense—

like a trout beneath the churning surface, still in its own shadow,

devouring the upstream current

.

And the first lesson was about beginnings,

‘About the Word becoming flesh’.

all rivers under heaven know of one another, echoing in response:

they originate from the same coolness of an early morning.

In August, they wander the distant north, above their head

lie several brown continental plates in the making.

Where a river’s tongue strains to fork,

its language rises in urgency, yet grows all the more muddled,

it draws the two shores close, then pushes them apart—

but at least, in the silver glow of the downstream where the water widens,

in the province without nations, the converging languages of rivers

teach you the very same lesson: to disappear, to turn length into breadth.

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Ma Yongbo was born in 1964. A PhD, he writes Chinese avant-garde poetry, He is the first translator to introduce American postmodern poetry into Chinese. He has published over eighty original works and translations since 1986, included nine poetry collections. He focused on translating and teaching American poetry including the work of Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Williams, Ashbery. His translation of Moby Dick has sold over 600,000 copies. He teaches at Nanjing University of Science and Technology.

Aqeel Solangi was born in Ranipur, Sindh. He graduated with honours from the National College of Arts, Lahore with a major in painting, followed by his first master’s degree in Visual Art. He received his second master’s from the Bath School of Art and Design, UK. He was the recipient of the renowned International Charles Wallace Pakistan Trust Visiting Artist Fellowship for the King’s Foundation, School of Traditional Arts, London. He teaches at the National College of Arts, Rawalpindi as an associate professor and head of the painting and sculpture departments. Solangi’s work has been showcased in Pakistan and internationally. He was part of the 2013 Pakistani Artists’ workshop in China. Solangi has received 'A Vision of the Future—2006' Young Artists Award by the Lahore Arts Council in 2006. His work has been reviewed by Dr. Michele Whiting, Dr. Akbar Naqvi, Aasim Akhtar, Marjorie Husain, Nafisa Rizvi, Salwat Ali, Noor Jehan Mecklai and Sally Bennett.