Meng Po Reimagined

Ida Jia ‘25

A river runs through the forest. Trees grow on both banks, the crowns forming a tunnel through which the boats travel. Every leaf holds the memory of a life: leaf by leaf, layer by layer, the trees weave a web of dreams, with the joys and sorrows of the world. As a boat travels downstream, the leaves carrying the passengers’ stories fall silently down to sleep, to dream, in the soft darkness of the earth beneath the breath of the wind, in the quiet stillness of the riverbed under the flow of the water. For all fallen leaves return to the roots. An old woman is standing on the bridge: she who gathers the leaves of memory and brews the tea of forgetfulness to lessen the burden of the sufferings of the earth in the cycle of death and rebirth. Sweet is the potion of unmemory! In the river of time souls are freed from history. Like dreamers the passengers row on until they disappear into the mist as the boat enters wider waters. For all rivers flow down to the sea: wave after wave, life after life, voyagers in the infinite ocean.