LIMITATIONS By Li Qi

LIMITATIONS

By Li Qi            

So sad — to be deeply attracted to a place,

but with no way of getting near even though the heart is willing.

My face turns pale, lips turn purple, death awaits.

"What you have is about of altitude sickness."

Here I am, a wretched creature from the lowland.

A body weighed down by clumsiness

— a metaphor itself or are minder that

heaven and earth are indeed grandiose,

unlike my deplorable state,

laboring to breathe as I lay dying.

These snow-capped mountain sand lakes,

this is where nature’s soul resides,

with hidden power and magic to enchant and hypnotize,

but now, all of them are gradually taken away from me.

What was a lofty plateau earlier is now a wet chrysanthemum,

looking grimmer and grimmer, unfurling a steely chilliness.

A transient only, but I have visited and revisited this place,

still, all that I picked upwere fragments of illumination,

and the constant reminder of my limitations.

This dizziness is giving away clues,

here let me give you one: better to desire in small proportions.

Look, the meadow sparkles with children playing with yaks,

a sign that everything fits together naturally.

A child running with open arms

can take off any time now, and he may turn into a cloud or a star.

In the distance, a herd of handsome gazelles

hear something, freeze as if in a trance before swiftly turning around.

Look at the beautiful outline of their skulls.

They pause before dashing off again.

Did something just enlighten them?

They look like fairies

floating gracefully through the air.

About the poet:

Li Qi, a native of Harbin, has been writing poetry for over 40 years. She works at the Heilongjiang Provincial Writers Association. She has published poetry collections such as The Sound of Nature, Guarding the Edge of Your Dream, The Original Sky, and Selected Recent Works of Li Qi, as well as prose collections including Eternal Blagi and Yun Xiang Yi Chang. She has won several literary awards, such as the Northeast Literature Award, the Ai Qing Poetry Award, and the Lu Xun Literature Award.