Last Summons

Unfortunately, after he’d set the last hiddenarrow in place, it shot through his chest.

Whenever it was dawn or dusk, he would go into the mountainsto hunt leopards, to hunt for his ancestors’ sublime gloryWhen his soul spoke to the forest, he would place many arrows in  traps(The people in the mountains saywhen he was younghis name married itself to the windand was sent far awaybecause hecaptured too many leopards)

He was a taciturn man, with a diary of adventures written on  his foreheadIt was only when joy overflowed the mountain lake’s stillnessthat he used his low, nasal voice or his deep chest voiceto croon a long mountain song, that winding, meandering songthat made women’s hearts tremble, stirring up incomparable wavesIt stung women’s noses, even more splendid than boulders at duskHis forehead had the phantom of prehistoric mountain ranges on itHis brown chest was a plain filled with wildness and lovethat made women freely cultivate undying faith in it(The mountain people sayhe was old by thenbut he still insisted onsetting one last arrow trapto strike a leopardThe mountain people saythat day he walked into the mountainit was duskand he was humming a song aloneThis time he leftand never returnedLater people discoveredhe died in the place where he’d set his arrow trap,That last concealed arrowhad shot through his chest)

He collapsed, looking like a sleepy plain in starlightHis eyes were open, and indecipherable languages flowed into them  from the Milky WayLet the news of his death stand on the mountaintop like a treeLet the women who love him alight like sun birds in that treeA story about a man will spread through the great mountainseven though fate sometimes puts such cruel clothes on life(The mountain people sayhe really did diebut after many years had passedthe body of a womanwas crematedin the place where he died)