Sonnet Cycle: 玄武開伝 [Genbu Kaiden]

[Because I am a huge geek. :D ]

女 [Woman]

So you’re gone at last, completely beyond the stars, beyond my reach, in your father’s homeland, neatly untucked in bed, rewriting speech you believe you should have given. Even if our souls are driven to madness from the parting slap, I’m pushing you across the gap, burning down the bridge that spanned it. I’ve found the reason I was born, and though it hurts to see you scorn (for you cannot understand it) the only gift that I can give, please keep your body whole; please live.

虛 [Void]

Many times, the spears of hated opponents pierced in fierce attack; childhood games have not created the scars upon my arms and back, yet my swift and icy arrows fail to hit their marks. The narrows of mountains thwart me. I am last among a class of heroes cast towering above the cattle, and all my childhood enemies who fled when I began to tease failed to ready me for battle against an army that has wrecked the stars I’m dying to protect.

壁 [Wall]

Thundering, divine, infernal, outgoing as the wintered earth, I take hold of what’s eternal while comprehending all its worth. Thus, the words that never sounded from the stone came forth. They bounded along the mountains, down the path of destiny and silent wrath. Never will I speak, but listen to whispers from the lips of those who trust in me, whose spears and bows can’t without me hold the glisten of starlight, and, without a word, I know that all I say is heard.

室 [Encampment]

With no starlight, silent, freezing, I waited while the heavens shook like a baby, crying, wheezing, a helpless maiden in a book, something lacking any power, locked alone inside my tower—although I was below the ground. I knew that I would not be found, but you found me. Now I’m learning to try to be of use to you; I’m still a nuisance. Take me to my protective shell; I’m turning too slowly into something old enough to stand against the cold.

斗 [Dipper]

Do not think I’ll hear your reason; you’re slavering on stardom now. Your behavior then was treason; you have no claim upon my vow. If it is my whim to save you, you are saved; the grace I gave you was mine to offer you or not. Your cries are nothing; you have bought nothing of me. I remember my younger sister hungry, cold—and she was only five years old. I don’t want to be a member of any people who would hurl those insults at a boy and girl.

危 [Danger] (2)

If two things against each other are weighed, the heavy one will sink. If two plants grow, one will smother the other, stealing food and drink from its roots. And if a mother bears two sons, the older brother wins favor at his father’s whim, although his brother is to him like a mirror to a mirror. As worthy as I know your cause to be, I choose to follow laws that return the star that’s dearer. Thus I, the second, go to lengths to let the first surpass my strengths.

牛 [Ox]

Once—I don’t remember, really—I may have asked how life was grown. I am no inept or silly stargazer; I have built my own empire on my back, the smelly streets its lowest floor, my belly and thighs its bricks and nails. I rule these countless insects—each a tool—and I feel no shame in saying that I do not rule over kings. And I, who ponder all these things, cannot see myself obeying commands of someone hardly set, who cannot rule her body yet.

危 [Danger] (1)

I was taught a song, a bother upon my lips, before my birth from the mouths of my grandfather and his grandfather, and the girth, weight, and shape of it is killing, tearing trees from roots and willing the water from the sea; it bars the earth’s embracing of the stars. I continue though I’m dying; I sing though what is mine must die. I sing to tell my heart goodbye. My reflection falters, trying to stop my dazzling sacrifice; my swollen throat is too precise.