Love Song of the Lobster Flower
Love Song of the Lobster Flower Hunan Province Ningyuan County College Entrance Examination Training Center Zhang Yinghua Lobster flower, when the sound of your blooming crackles and bursts through the rich autumn colors of Golden Whip Stream, my life, like the mountains and waters of Zhangjiajie, also welcomes a grand festival. That autumn, you once again bloomed across Zhangjiajie with all kinds of charm, brightening Zhangjiajie's mountain scenery and water colors, and formed with me a landscape bond of kindred spirits. Golden Whip Stream water and clouds play with shadows, lobster flower colors are lovely…
The Love Song of the Lobster Flower
Zhang Yinghua, Ningyuan County College Entrance Examination Training Center, Hunan Province
Lobster Flower, when the sound of your blooming crackles and pops through the rich autumn colors of Golden Whip Stream, my life, too, like the mountains and waters of Zhangjiajie, welcomes a grand festival.
That autumn, you once again bloomed across Zhangjiajie with endless charm, brightening its mountain scenery and waters, and formed with me a bond of mountains and waters, a meeting of kindred spirits. The waters of Golden Whip Stream play with cloud shadows; the colors of the Lobster Flower make a fine autumn. I plunged headlong into your passion, your intensity, your depth, accepting your enchantment and your guidance. My heart and you grew into a single green plant, blazing together across slopes and banks, together radiant in five colors and ten hues, brilliant as cloud rainbows. And so, we who regretted meeting so late bloomed in three colors: the red reddening with all its might, red like red coral nurtured by blue sea water; the yellow yellowing with all its might, yellow like yellow glaze held on a jade plate; the purple purpling with all its might, purple like amethyst set in turquoise. And so we poured forth the spirit and bearing bred by heaven and earth, dotting the mist and mountain haze stroke by stroke, playing bird songs and insect chirps tune by tune, encircling wonders of mountains and waters layer by layer, making all within sight delicate, vivid, fresh, wrapped in auspicious light and golden radiance……
Lobster Flower, we are so kindred in spirit; perhaps we have long been soulmates. Bathed in the transparent long wind of your sea of flowers, my literary thoughts, too, along with your flower heads, extend playful tendrils that sport in the water and battle the waves. Climbing the slopes and banks winding with green grass and trees, my inspiration swells and bursts into bloom, merging with your segmented flower body, together flowing with color and light, together revealing and concealing the mystery of Zhangjiajie. Regarding the towering peaks as jeweled pillars of the Dragon Palace and the transparent mountain streams as jade belts and silk scarves, my feelings, too, become exceedingly rich and delicate, growing long green stalks linked with your flower tails, gently swaying buds on the branches, some blooming alone, some in paired splendor……
Lobster Flower, you are a watch of hundreds and thousands of years, a wait of hundreds and thousands of years. Year after year you grow, year after year you bloom, becoming a legend, a classic. Generation after generation, the people of Zhangjiajie also watch over your spring, summer, autumn, and winter, watch over your blood-dyed pure love.
A single flower is a poignant legend of love.
Legend says you were originally a lobster that cultivated itself into a spirit in the great sea, a personal guard of the princess of the Dragon King's palace in the East Sea. Sent by the Dragon King, you bravely escorted the princess on a campaign, cleverly swapping out the mountain-driving whip of Qin Shi Huang, who moved mountains and filled seas, to avert the grave crisis pressing toward the Dragon Palace. Resourceful as you were, after many twists and turns, you finally replaced Qin Shi Huang's mountain-driving whip with a fake. The mountains no longer moved; the task was at last complete, and the Dragon Girl returned to court in triumph to receive rewards. The mortal world has love that bewitches lobsters; lobsters have love that longs for the mortal world. You were both a warrior and a romantic. You transformed into a pure and lovely village girl, fell in love with Zhangjiajie, and built a home with a young man who made his living gathering firewood, intending to live that little life of you plowing and me weaving with relish, living it in loving affection and sweet happiness. A local Tusi chief, stirred by lust at the sight of your beauty, brought his retainers and seized you into his stockade, forcing you to become his fortress wife. You would rather die than submit, and fled the tiger's den with your sweetheart, who had fought his way through to rescue you. With the clawing, snarling Tusi in hot pursuit, your love could hardly escape danger. In desperation, husband and wife embraced each other and, without changing expression, leaped from the cliff of Golden Whip Rock……
Later, by Golden Whip Stream there appeared the Husband-and-Wife Rocks, leaning on each other and never to be parted; people say those are transformed from your bodies and your husband's. Still later, around the Husband-and-Wife Rocks appeared three-colored Lobster Flowers that dress the autumn in red and purple rivalry, their flame lighting the sky; people say these are Zhangjiajie's unique flowers of love, dyed by the blood of you and your husband. The red flowers are vividly red, stained by the blood of you who often wore a red silk scarf. The yellow flowers are bright yellow, stained by the hot blood of your sweetheart who often wore a yellow bamboo hat. The purple flowers are pinkish purple, stained by the loyal hearts and noble blood of you both, pledged in mountain and sea vows, mingled as one. You turned Zhangjiajie into a mountain of love and a sea of affection. Whether under clear skies and bright sun or in bleak wind and rain, your fragrant flowers arrive as promised, coming across mountains and fields, blanketing the earth and sky, coming overflowing with pearls and tears, full of deep feeling. Mountains and waters have feeling, plants and trees have spirit, the mortal world has love. Love bonds are truly to be cherished; love must be defended. You tell us that if a love bond is forcibly severed, then become stone, become flower, and continue the former bond, let love go on. Year after year you bloom, blooming for yourself to see, blooming for people to see. I think this is both a self-revelation, a mutual declaration of sincerity with your beloved, and also a repeated exhortation and reminder to people who need to cultivate love and arrange happiness.
Lobster Flower, your crackling, popping flower of life is a promise to the mountains and an oath to the waters, a fireworks display for the sky and a grand feast for the earth. Having the fortune to know you and form a bond with you, how could I not be as if crazed, deeply devoted? If I too were a murmuring, flowing Golden Whip Stream, I would sing your face into the love song in my heart that never changes in a thousand years, never alters in ten thousand. If I too were a green tree or blade of grass in Zhangjiajie, fragrant and verdant, I would raise your flowers as the radiant divine lamp and holy fire in my hand. If I too were a purple cliff of Zhangjiajie spread like a sail, I would use your persistence and purity to forge a Noah's Ark that rides the wind and cleaves the waves, gilded with blazing red clouds at sunrise, draped in glittering silver radiance at moonfall……