“Chain of Time and Space” by Lan Xin (Lanxin Samei)

Lan Xin (Lan Xin)
World Memory Heritage The Only Female Inheritor of Dongba Culture, Internationally Renowned Chinese Writer and Poet, Winner of the Premio Letterario Internazionale Francesco Giampietri, the Only Female Inheritor of the World Memory Heritage Dongba Culture, Dean of the Yulong Wenbi Dongba Culture Academy of China and Lanxin Samei Academy

Eva Lianou Petropoulou
Αποκλειστικη Eκπρόσωπος για την Ελλάδα για την προώθηση της πολιτιστικής κληρονομιάς – Dongba Culture Κίνα

On an autumn afternoon

The holy sunlight

Leaps from the snow-capped peak into the academy

As if traveling through a millennium of time

Back to the homeland of ages past

That gaze, waiting for a thousand years

Freezes for me at this very moment

When I turn around abruptly

It feels like a lifetime apart

I take off the necklace around my neck

Amid the winding starlight

Are dotted the traces of past and present lives

Dongba hieroglyphs linger between the links

The proverbs our ancestors carved on wooden tablets

The phoenix glowing in that shimmering starlight

Embraces the flaming red sun

Chirping softly and melodiously

Yearning to roost upon the parasol tree

The clove blossoms stretching miles ahead

Along with mountain breezes, sunlight, and blue-purple birds

Dance gracefully in the tunnel of time and space

Shadows of prayer flags brush the lines on my palms

Harmonizing gently with the cadence of Dongba chants

With the highest reverence

And the most graceful bearing

They welcome the phoenix home

O dear time and space

How can I ever hold you fast

Only by

Stringing you all onto this necklace—

Clouds, sun, halos, ancient trees

The divine birds soaring out of Dongba scriptures

And myself, who has wandered for a thousand years

Stringing them into a chain of time and space

Then, with trembling hands

Il place it around the neck of this thousand-year-old temple

Concise Annotation

This poem is a spiritual expression of Lan Xin who resides at the millennium-old Dongba Culture Academy. It embodies the profound animistic philosophy rooted in Dongba culture.

With the autumn sunlight as a medium to travel through time and space, the poet turns the necklace around her neck into a carrier of civilization—the hidden Dongba hieroglyphs are the proverbs of ancestors, while the phoenix glowing in starlight is a spiritual metaphor for herself. The vivid scene of mountain breezes, blooming flowers, prayer flags and chants dancing in harmony, welcoming the “phoenix” home, implies the academy’s millennium-long wait and the poet’s destined encounter with her cultural mission.

In the end, the poet strings the wonders of nature, cultural totems and her thousand-year spiritual journey into the “Chain of Time and Space”. When she places it on the ancient temple, this act not only conveys her deep cherish for the present beauty and gratitude for the blessings of all things, but also seals an eternal promise to inherit and carry forward the precious Dongba culture.