The Locust Swarm - Hsu Chao

[Lawrence Robinson]

The Locust Swarm
 
Locusts laid their eggs in the corpse
of a soldier.  When the worms were
mature, they took wing.  Their drone
was ominous, their shells hard.
 
Anyone could tell they had hatched
from an unsatisfied anger.
 
They flew swiftly towards the North.
They hid the sky like a curtain.
When the wife of the soldier
saw them, she turned pale, her breath
failed her.  She knew he was dead
in battle, his corpse lost in
the desert.  That night she dreamed
 
She rode a white horse, so swift
it left no footprints, and came
to where he lay in the sand.
 
She looked at his face, eaten
by the locusts, and tears of
blood filled her eyes.  Ever after
she would not let her children
injure any insect which
might have fed on the dead.  She
 
would lift her face to the sky
and say, "O locusts, if you
are seeking a place to winter,
you can find shelter in my heart.”
	
	- Hsu Chao
 
            (Translated from the Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth)