Nian Nu Jiao: Jinggang Mountain (May 1965) Towering trees reach to the sky; for hundreds of miles they surge upward to this wondrous peak in the southern heavens. Returning to these hallowed grounds, what do I behold? More pavilions and kiosks have sprung up. Before the Five Wells Monument, upon Huangyangjie Pass, cars seem to leap and bound. The landscape is like a painting—so it was said of old, when seas of green clouds rolled across the land.  In the twinkling of an eye, thirty-eight years have passed; the world has been transformed, as if heaven and earth had been turned upside down. I still recall those days amid the flames of war, when to eke out survival from the jaws of death seemed but yesterday. Only my lofty spirit remains: a bright moon hangs in the sky, while winds and thunder roar in mighty grandeur. At a single cockcrow, all monstrous phantoms vanish, and clouds and mists are swept away. Printed according to the edition in Selected Poems and Lyrics of Mao Zedong, published by the People’s Literature Publishing House in September 1986. (Includes Mao Zedong’s handwritten manuscript.)