The night gave me black eyes.
I use it to find the light.
This was written by the poet shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution. The background image in the poem is night, and the basic image is light. Eyes and light are common images in fairy tales. They belong to beauty and warmth. In Gu Cheng's poems, the background of the dark night painted a strong background for all this. This is a true portrayal of the ten years of the Cultural Revolution. The poet did not exaggerate the cruelty of the Cultural Revolution in a complicated way, but used the meaningful image of night. For a thoughtful soul, nothing is more suffocating than totalitarianism and a dark night of thought. However, people who keep thinking and waking up are unwilling to stay in the dark night. They will struggle and torture. They will pierce the chest of the night with the eyes full of fear and doubt given by the night, looking for the light that symbolizes the resurrection of humanity and reason.
The ingenuity of this poem lies in the simple combination of three images, which presents the fate of a generation's thoughts, struggles and doubts. The background is heavy, but the style is not depressed, but full of consciousness and fighting spirit. More importantly, the poet grasped the characteristics of that era and endowed poetry with reflective character. In such an era of darkness, the tragic persistence of the hero in poetry is tantamount to a resounding declaration; For history, it is a profound summary.
The poet faces the future, but behind it is a heavy history, which is the poetic image of the sculpture thinker in the text. There are historical vicissitudes in his body, but their reflection and questioning of history are doomed to meet and talk with the future. I think this is why the poet drew up such a big title for these two poems.