Who made the locusts born in the wild?
In autumn one mother dies, leaving a hundred young.
Buried underground, they do not rot,
As if ghostly allies gather and hold them strong.
Winter birds, hungry, peck the ground for food,
Gathering grain seeds, leaving none behind.
Their beaks take eggs but do not break them,
Seeming to leave them for human hunger to find.
Last winter warm, little snow fell,
The soil unfrozen, no ice to see.
Spring steam swells, they emerge from earth,
Dense and swarming like porridge in a pot, carefree.
Old farmers, stubborn, unaware of the matter,
Small ones not quelled, large ones beyond pursuit.
Thus they gather, forming a mighty force,
Coming like floodwaters, boundless and absolute.
Weeds fill the eyes, luckily of no use,
Even if you chew them all, who would blame you?
Yet why leave those untouched, uneaten,
Instead harming millet and grain, causing injury anew?
Owls and crows peck and carry, each taking their fill,
Bellies stuffed as if propped up, beyond their will.
Children leap and laugh, faces upturned,
Loving the dense swarms, disliking the thin and still.
I ponder the beginning of all things created,
Each can be reasoned by Heaven's principle, stated.
Four‑legged beasts, hooves and wings not borrowed,
Above they bear horns, teeth then are fated.
Why do these alone stand out from the crowd,
Given both leaping and flying, endowed?
The qilin appears once in a thousand years,
Its benevolence spares trampling grass, bowed.
The phoenix, emerging rarely, is an auspicious sign,
Feeding on bamboo, perching on the wutong tree.
Why are those so few, these so many,
Moreover, their mouths and bellies harm endlessly.
Thus my thoughts cannot reach an end,
Ten thousand eyes look up, crying to Heaven's decree.
Heaven, accused, cannot defend itself,
Gloomy the bright day, shadowed without glee.
And I, foolish and wild, without measure,
Wish to exhaust all principles, down to the finest thread.
To dispel common doubts, I wield my own vision,
At midnight, striving to probe and spread.
If we know it lies in man, not in Heaven,
Like fleas and lice born in clothes, it's said.
Search and pick them out, aim to clear all,
Is this something humans still favor instead?
Yet their kind never ceases to breed,
How could old filth attract them to be fed?
Fish rot gives birth to worms, meat decays to moths,
A constant principle, no doubt to dread.
Who is the one sighing for the state's woes?
Should be glad I have this poem on locusts' spread.