2 The Monkey Who Sailed for Cultivation Journey to the West

No longer bound to silence or to stone
He claimed by will the right to rule his own
No heavenly writ no mandate from above
But strength and wit and brotherhood and love

Thus rose a king beneath the mountain’s root
Where Heaven’s breath and Earth’s deep powers commute
And there began the tale all worlds shall sing
The Handsome Sage the Everlasting King

No longer fettered to sylvan sport and mirth
A metaphysic hunger wracked his birth
Though hailed as sovereign by exultant throng
He knew all crowns to entropy belong

Beneath the firmaments indifferent gaze
He spoke through silence thick with astral haze
I seek a Dao no dissolution mars
A truth immune to Time and wrath of stars

Then sorrow surged through simian domain
A tide of grief no revel could restrain
They summoned forth a banquet vast and grand
With luxuries no mortal court had planned

On jadehewn slabs were heaped ambrosial fare
Vermilion fruits perfumed the mountain air
Fermented nectars aged in caverns deep
Were poured in streams like dreams too rich for sleep

Gold vessels gleamed with sacrificial wine
Rare roots and herbs in alchemic design
Phoenixtail fungi ginseng wrought like art
Each dish a rite each flavor set apart

No vulgar feast but liturgy of kings
Where grief was veiled beneath resplendent things
They sang not loud but low in trembling tone
As if each note must walk the void alone

The elders knelt with ritual despair
The young clung fast as if to anchor there
Their cries resounded through the shadowed vale
A choral dirge borne on the mourning gale

Return they pled transfigured deathless bright
Outblaze the sun outlast the lunar light
He turned but once no further backward cast
Then cleft the woods and severed from the past

Through serrate cliffs where granite fangs arise
He strode beneath impenetrable skies
At last he reached the oceans vast expanse
A churning void in stochastic expanse

No bridge of reason spanned that yawning deep
Only abyss where cosmic secrets sleep
He wrought a vessel from primeval wood
With braided vines as sinews where it stood

Then launched himself on waters unconfined
A lone defiance of both fate and mind
Tempests erupted with cataclysmic roar
Leviathan waves assailed his fragile core

The firmament split wide with argent flame
While thunder spoke his yetunwritten name
The billows towered like titans crowned in foam
Each surge a decree No exile finds a home

Yet still he cleaved through brine and roaring air
A will incarnate sharpened by despair
At times abyssal phantoms stirred below
Colossal forms in tenebrous ebb and flow

At times the winds in ululating cry
Seemed sentient mocking both sea and sky
Through nights when constellations dimmed to none
Through days eclipsed before theyd scarce begun

He clung to breath as final citadel
A spark unconquered where all others fell
At length a shoreline surfaced from the gloom
A liminal verge twixt genesis and doom

He stepped ashore where mortal nations dwell
And donned their guise their dialect as well
He learned their rites their hierarchies and art
Yet none could pierce the riddle in his heart

No sage of men no doctrine rite nor breath
Could yield dominion over time and death
One day within a grove of muted light
He met a woodsman humble yet erudite

Though clad in coarse and bearing rustic mien
His words bespoke what lay beyond the seen
Beyond these peaks the woodcutter intoned
Where geomantic veins of Qi have grown

There stands a mount no common eye may chart
The sacred seat men name the Heart Mountain
Where leylines braid and astral currents stream
Where void and form converge in lucid dream

Where cinnabar cliffs exhale a violet breath
And cloudwreathed ridges contemplate on death
With reverence fierce the monkey bowed his head
Then scaled the heights where mortal paths had fled

Through vapor seas and gradients severe
He climbed where even spirits yield to fear
At last beneath a moon of argent glaze
He reached a realm beyond all temporal phase

A precinct hushed where causality seemed thinned
A threshold where the Dao itself had thinned
Before him loomed oblique in mystic tone
The cave of Three Stars Slanting Moon alone

No sigil marked it none proclaimed its gate
Yet all the air was saturated fate
He stilled his breath all wandering paths were done
Here ends the many here begins the One

Writ令狀 文書 write寫
Mandate授權 天命 command命令
commute通勤 見仙女座詞彙
fetter束縛 foot腳-被鞋子束縛狀
sylvan森林 salvia鼠尾草
mirth歡笑 music音樂
metaphysic 形而上的 見仙女座詞彙
sovereign君主 seven七
exultant狂喜的 exalt提升 solar太陽的
throng人群 throne王位
entropy熵 混亂 幻滅 troop部隊
firmament蒼穹 formation形成
indifferent冷淡的
astral星辰的 astronomy天文學
haze霧氣 house房子
dissolution瓦解 solve溶解
mar損壞 merit美德
immune免疫 不受影響 common共同的
surge湧動 shark鯊魚
simian類人猿的 same一樣多的
banquet盛宴 band樂隊
jadehewn玉石鑿成的 jade玉 jet黑玉 噴射
ambrosial甘露般的 amber琥珀
vermilion硃紅色 wine酒
fermented發酵的 refine精製 見鳳凰座單詞
nectars花蜜 甘露 nuclear核
vessel器皿 vase花瓶

sacrificial祭祀的
alchemic煉金術的 煉丹的 chemistry化學
fungi菌類 見鳳凰座詞彙
wrought精製的 鍛造的 red紅色
rite儀式 red紅色
vulgar粗俗的 velvet天鵝絨