A Sunflower Seed's Line of Negation by Yang Lian

For Ai Weiwei

unimaginable that Du Fu’s little boat was once
moored on this ceramic river
I don’t know the moonlight     see only the poem’s clarity
attenuated line by line     to a non-person
to the symbols    discussing and avoiding everything
I’m no symbol     a sun dying under the sunflower seed’s hard shell
nor is the sun     snow-white collapsed meat of children
nor have I disappeared     daybreak’s horizon impossibly
forgot that pain     bones like glass sliced by glass
I didn't scream, so must scream at each first light
an earthquake never stands still
no need to suffocate the dead     planting rows of fences to the ends of the earth
handcuffing ever more shameful silence    so     I don’t fear
the young policewoman interrogating my naked body
it was formed by fire     no different to yours
knowing no other way to shatter but a hundred million shatterings within myself
falling into no soil     only into the river that can’t flow
that cares nothing for the yellow flower within the stone     having to go on
to hold back     like a drop of Du Fu’s old tears
refusing to let the poem sink into dead indifferent beauty