Mengcheng Mound
- Poetry of Wang Wei

This poem serves as the prologue to Wang Wei's Wang River Collection, a series of twenty poems composed during his later years of retirement at his Wang River estate. Having weathered the vicissitudes of official life and the profound trauma of the An-Shi Rebellion, the poet acquired the former country villa of Song Zhiwen in Lantian's Wang River area. His state of mind had by then settled into clarity and tranquility. Although the poem describes his new dwelling at Mengcheng Pass, it is not an expression of the joy of a new home. Rather, it uses a landscape steeped in historical memory as a mirror, reflecting deep Chan contemplation on possession, time, and existence. With the most economical brushstrokes, and through the tension between "new" and "ancient," "present arrival" and "past," it outlines a philosophical vision that penetrates personal joy and sorrow to arrive at the eternal cycle of all things.