Classic Poem

On the ground cedar and zelkova roots
entangling, robbing each other
stand out like terrifying veins
from the grass and moss of this lean soil,
in the sky, clouds silently flowing east,
the cedar top withered,
the zelkova tip looking as if
it lives on snatches it takes from the wind
...sometimes the cedar withers the zelkova
sometimes the zelkova withers the cedar. . . .
(Harvest the rice, eat the rice, what for?
Eat the rice, harvest the rice, what for?)
The technician shouts over there,
the trees, blurring, look half-melted in the sky,
and again, suffocating, the blue rice stalks.