Mencius, what is that they're doing?

Zhǐ! Another immortal walked from the sea;
Leaf & cordage finely chopped,
Throughly masticated & combined,
Left to the air to then reside
And collected after dried.
How most strange & curious!

You say the nobility call this parchment,
But for humor as irony
And because of the sound made
During the process of hammering,
The craftsmen call it paper?
And, like with tattoos,
They use pastes & fluids like dyes & resins
To stain drawings, shapes, and characters?

The lesser the weight of tablets,
Well-traveled with, easily read & clearly,
Markable with ease; readily inviting change
After change, reflecting our fragileness & resilience, offering record of our thoughts & accomplishments, a chance for the more prolific scribe and the library diverser & denser?

How wonderous a creation,
How gifted the craftsmen,
How genius the inventors.


Wow. That was so long ago
Before I was born.
But then compared to much else,
This fledgling has yet to have flown
From the small enclaves it nests as home.