What Can We Learn From a Rock Along the Yellow River? 中流砥柱
- 3 days ago
- 1 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
There are times when life feels like a strong current. Things press in from every side, and the mind can begin to feel pulled by noise, habit, and urgency.
This poem returns to a simple image: a rock standing in the Yellow River.
Its Own Ground
This rock along the Yellow River
stands where the current runs strong,
driving silt downstream,
with all the restlessness of the far-off land.
And still, it remains.
It meets
the push and pull of the water.
It feels the drag at its roots,
the long rough tug,
the sleepless pressure.
The river leans against it
day after day,
as it has through ages,
just as the world leans against us,
as it has leaned against
those before us
and those still to come,
testing what in us
will stay,
what will not be carried away.
Perhaps this is why
something in us grows quiet
before such a thing:
not because the rock has conquered the river
but because it has learned
how to belong
to the force that surrounds it
without surrendering
its own ground.
Maybe this is what real steadiness looks like. Not resisting everything. Not giving way to everything. Just staying rooted in the middle of what moves.
In daily life, this may begin very simply. A difficult conversation lingers. A restless thought returns. An old habit pulls at the mind. The current is still there. But not everything in us has to go with it.
