In a Calabash, Book 4, Spring

A Sinking Dragon
: The taste of flesh extinguished a portion of the breath; That aeons ago had roared in the great lung of Pon Ghu.; And with it (that breath) now flew away,; On wings of gossamer sunlight,; A bit of their divinity.; Was it the mountain drank the sea; As wind and wood were suddenly consumed; By tongues of flame?; At the side of Lady Wah the water begins to boil; And out jumps a slithery man-fish; To drag her into the foam.; The mottled carp-tail beats a current through the waters,; The thrashing tail of Shewah trailing in its wake.; A journey that began in crystal lake; Now is coursing undersea.; Soon they reach a cave and creep down fathoms; Of a deep blue crypt; Crawling now with creatures never known.; There are sea nymph; Shrimp reflected in the; Eel-light of man-o'-war sky,; And there are squid as big as horses; Bearing on their backs shark-finned sentinels.; Yet the man-carp pays them all no heed.; As the captor reaches the lowest chambers of the sea,; The half-woman, half-dragon captive; Beholds an underwater kingdom:; Palace walls are carved of emerald jade;; Mother-of-Pearl graces its shell portals; Whose thresholds are hammered gold.; Eel porters stand at attention before the shining gate; Which presently opens to show the nebulous form; Of Huh Boa,; The Lord of the Yellow River.; Huh Boa, the insatiable,; Is a dark mass of mud,; Churning and twisting his shape constantly.; At once he's a whirling pool of octopus ink,; Next a thundercloud seething with flame.; But when Shewah is presented at the palace gate; He quickly reverts to a sentient form.; Huh Boa strokes his beard then roars,; Calling his turtle steed of white,; Then welcomes the beauty to his realm,; His red locks flowing in the ocean's breeze.; But his words are like whale sounds--; A pipe organ submerged.; Shewah is bidden to climb on.; The last we see is the turtle paddling slowly toward the sky,; The cargo proud but not protesting,; The driver grinning like a giant clam.; As the scene dissolves to boiling clouds of sargasso,; Look!; Darting out!; Is that the turtle's head?; Before the enchanted eyes of Lady Wah; Appears a vision of the den:; Who is that; Standing there with his longbow,; Blocking the entrance to my cave?

A Flying Dragon

As Huh Boa's minion

Snatches away the form of Lady Wah,

Fuh He leaps up high to Heaven,

Up and out, over the abyss of night.

He pounces like a cat

From nebulae to nebulae,

Traversing the great chasm of space,

In search of Yih the Archer

With his constellated bow and arrow--

Jewel-encrusted crescent and jadeite dart.

On Earth, meanwhile,

The mountains are smoking,

Waters steaming,

And valleys drying into deserts.

Fish are flopping on the sand,

Spewing moisture on each other.

All other life is seeking cave or burrow.

Hoh Yih of Heaven

Scans the devastation from the boreal sky,

Then leaps down quickly to the burning banks

Of the Yellow River.

As if on cue the roguish duke

Surfaces on his turtle,

Shewah kneeling on the carapace behind him.

In one swift motion Hoh Yih shoots the rascal in the eye.

But Huh Boa escapes,

Diving deep beneath the waves,

Leaving the curious dragoness to eye the gallant Yih.

Yih and Wah wade gently to the riverbank.

Then the archer turns his gaze to Heaven

Where ten raven-suns are circling in the sky like vultures.

Five times in succession,

He takes two arrows from his quiver,

Shooting one and nocking the other

Before the first has hit its raven target.

Each speeding missile wavers in its path,

Spits flaming feathers,

Then falls to earth a dead,

Three-legged crow.

At last the great saviour of the sweltering Earth

Kneels

And takes the lady's hand.

They spend the earth's first moonlit night

Asleep in the mulberry grove

That slowly grows up around them.

In the morning the Great Yih is gone.

Garments of Yellow; I awaken,; And lie on a bank of yellow clay; With pieces clinging to my limbs.; A spring breeze laps waves upon the shore;; The sun is beginning to rise.; What's this?; I reach down to the oozing clay,; Scoop up a handful; Squeezing, kneading,; Divide the lump,; Sculpt a long, gainly limb--; Then another bough or leg; And lean the two together; Windward, leeward,; Affix a third piece for the trunk,; Two tawny arms, a handsome head,; Voila!
: The pattern finally reveals itself,; When Shewah fashions the bust in her own reflected form.; Next she cradles the sculpture; And blows into its mouth; As if she played her bamboo flute.; It abruptly jerks its legs and arms; And comes to life with a snarl.; Then it springs from her embrace; And bumps and bounds; Up the riverbank.; So the woman without stopping builds another; And another.; Some she licks to life as if tasting placenta.; Some she bathes in the river water,; And some she fondles and strokes; Until the petting wakes the spirit of the clay.; But in all instances,; When the dark-haired kit; First tastes salt of the lady's palms,; First gazes into those lizard eyes,; It fears for its miserable life; And escapes from the clutch of the creatrix.; Soon a score of them are perched in the trees.; The next figure she forms in yellow clay; Bites her; As she swaths it in her sweaty arms,; So she hurls it to the center; Of the river by a leg.; Ai, yeow!; Resolved no longer to knead clay like dough; She picks up instead a stray piece of cord,; Drags it like a fishnet through the mud,; Then snaps and sends a glob of amber flying.; Ei?; It lands with a flap and changes to a boy; Who runs in circles screaming like a piglet.; Delighted,; She claps her hands,; And dabs and lobs again.; Hai!; The splotch becomes a girl; Turning somersaults.; Soon the daubs; Have populated hills and vales; With a hundred of the tiny humanoids.; As the sun revolves into the lake,; The dragon woman rests from her labors.; Her tail curls around her slumbering form,; As the chatter in the trees; Becomes a roar.

The hoard of flea-like,; Hairy striplings; Tumbles down and scampers,; Lopes,; And crawls; About the peopled hills,; Grazing on the pullulating fare.; By now the local fauna; Feels the malodorous presence; Of the new bipedal beast,; And each carnivore,; And omnivore of near and far; Has winged; Or hoofed; Or snaked its way; To this valley of ordure.; When tooth; And claw; And fang is bared,; Satiated fleshbags; Bound up their brushy haunts; Roosting up above the carnage--; Breast and bone.; Naked in their ignorance,; Dumb of mouth; And cold,; Scared of death; And always defecating,; This is black-haired Man.; Meanwhile, Shewah lies coiled on the loam,; When out of nowhere bursts; The murk of hated Gongong,; Fiend of the Flood,; Intent on ravishing the matriarch of Man.; (Gongong planned to pull the pillars of Heaven down,; Flooding all the Earth,; Then reign as pelagic overlord; With Lady Wah at his side.); But the lady rises on his lewd advance; And strikes him with her lashing tail.; The demon reels,; Then charges with his massive head,; Batters at the base of Bujou Shan,; Pillar of the sky.; Soon Asymmetric Mountain falls,; Causing Earth to rise and Heaven slip; At the northwest quadrant of the land.; The rising earth sends rushing waters; Flooding ever eastward--; The stars since Gongong's fit of rage; Have flown toward the north.; Pleased with the enormity; Of this his first calamity,; Gongong calls the rains down; To drown that heartless worm.; Laughs loud and long does dragon dam; Before retrieving her bamboo flute,; Whereupon she blows a note to rival thunder,; Shake the roots of mountains,; And fire the forge of molten rock.; For ages do they battle,; Ranging wide; As flood and fire consume the land.; But what of quaking Man,; Barefoot; And prisoner of bush?; From the vantage point of crunching bone,; From the sound of canine lapping blood,; From the smell of brimstone; And the freeze of arctic rain; Something snaps in the lemming brain.; Crazed, the mass of naked beasts leaps to certain death; Into the mounting flood,; But for two,; A boy and girl,; Pubescent,; Who take refuge in a hollow bottle gourd.; The rising tide; Tears at the mooring vine; Until it breaks; And the calabash is launched.; It floats there among the flotsam--; Bloated bears and timbers charred--; Until the one remaining raven-sun; Flies fourscore circuits of the sky.; Embraced by shell; Like seeds; They feed by day on melon rind; And dream by night; Of lizard primogenitor,; Little knowing that the hands; That shaped their yellow limbs; Are just then locked in mortal combat.; At long last; With the help of Turtle,; The demon Gongong weakens; And is buried; Deep beneath the arctic ice and snow.; But now no longer separate; Is the Earth from Heaven.; The sky has fallen to the ground; And ocean mingled with the moon.
: Shewah kneels:; I bid you, Turtle,; Sacrifice your sturdy limbs.; And these she stands at Earth's four corners,; Propping up the sky.; Then she dredges from the galactic alluvium; Gemstones of every hue; To mix a mortar fit to mend the broken sky.; Her duty done, she sighs,; And joins the Turtle; Beneath the placid waves.