Letter to My Wife

You nag
And I regard you as Mother
You play the woman
And I regard you as Daughter
You are generous
And I regard you as Older Sister
You are childish
And I regard you as Younger Sister
You criticize me
And I regard you as my superior
You help me
And I regard you as my teacher
You encourage me
And I regard you as a friend
You urge me on
And I regard you as a colleague
You soft-spot me, you love me and you tolerate me
---you are my wife

《与妻书》

你唠叨
我把你当母亲
你撒娇
我把你当女儿
你大度
我把你当姐姐
你任性
我把你当妹妹
你批评我
我把你当领导
你帮助我
我把你当老师
你鼓励我
我把你当朋友
你鞭策我
我把你当同事
你疼我，爱我，包容我
——你是我老婆

The Red Apple

I look at her
As she looks at me
We keep a proper distance and etiquette
Before we realize it, the dust has settled
The wind and rain kept outside the windows
She has grown wrinkles
And I, grey hair

《红苹果》

我看着她
她看着我
我们保持了适度的距离和礼节
不知不觉中，尘埃落定
风雨都在窗外
她长了皱纹
我添了白发

The Thorn

Those things of the past
Like a thorn
Sometimes prick into the flesh, the heart
When you gently pull it out
It hurts more
Than when it jabs in

《刺》

那些过去的事
有时像根刺
扎进肉里，扎进心里
轻轻拨出时
比扎进时
更痛

Golden Ears of Rice [Excerpt]

Before the peasants swing their sickles, they fall into a long silence
And they watch for a long time, making a bow with their bent backs
Golden ears of rice are wordless in the autumn wind
The river flows quietly, repetitiously
If I could, I would retain time
And hold the small happiness of an ear of rice, in my hand

《金黄的稻子》

农民挥镰之前，久久地缄默
久久地注目，弯腰鞠躬
金黄的稻子在秋风里不语
河水静静流淌，循环往复
如果可能，我想把时光挽留
把一束稻子的小小幸福，捧在手中

Roses, Really, are a Variety of Flowers

A red, red rose, like velvet
A white, white rose, like a cloud
They are the colour of a flower
Or the background of a cloth
The purple rose
Resembles the underclothes Older Sister wore at the wedding

Roses open in various seasons
There’s a lingering fragrance in them
And a complex that needs no explanation
Why do poets compare a rose to love
Whereas it’s a mere flower, the symbol both of the country and of the city*

Roses, really, are a variety of flowers
That I have to keep watering, cultivating and pruning

* The “country” in the sense of countryside rather than nation, Long Quan actually using the expression “xiangcun” (or village).

《玫瑰，其实只是一种花》

红红的，天鹅绒般的红玫瑰
白白的，白云彩似的白玫瑰
它们是一种花的颜色
或者说，是一种布的背景
那一朵紫色的玫瑰
就像姐姐出嫁时的内衣

玫瑰花在不同的季节绽放
在它们悠悠长长的沁香里
有一种情结让人怀想
有一种比喻不需要解释
为什么诗人总把玫瑰比作爱情
这就是一朵花，从乡村到城里的象征

玫瑰，其实只是一种花
我必须经常为她培土、整枝和浇水

A Materialist’s Lyrical Ways

For example---
Making a smacking sound when eating
Snoring when sleeping
Making noisy sex when making love
A materialist loves verbs
And he refuses adjectives for he thinks
Lyricism ought to come from body itself
From a huge stomach
Superlative lungs
And the stimulation to the body from the outside world
Meanwhile, poetry is rubbish
So soundless
One can hardly stand it

《一个物质主义者的抒情方式》

比如说——
吃饭时发出吧嗒吧嗒的响声
睡觉时发出呼噜呼噜的鼾声
亲热时发出吭哧吭哧的叫声
物质主义者喜欢动词
拒绝形容词，他认为
抒情，应该来自身体本身
来自一个巨大的胃
和一个超级的肺
来自外界对肉体的刺激
而诗，就是垃圾
没有声音的垃圾
让人无法忍受

The Belly Button, a Third Eye

Refusing to open
She lets you touch and kiss
And she lets you enter, in a hurry, into her bellyland
She refuses to listen
And she says: she is shy
And she is afraid of you getting so close to her
As such a deep sea
Might drown her
She, closing both her eyes,
Lets the lake water undulate and the fish play
As she watches the flames burning inside the body
The way water moves
And getting entangled, the way fog does

《肚脐眼，第三只眼》

她就是不睁开
任你抚摸，任你亲吻
任你急切地进入她的腹地
她就是不听
她说，她怕羞
怕看见你离她那么近
那么深邃的海洋
会把她淹没
于是，她闭上所有的眼睛
任湖水荡漾，鱼儿嬉戏
她看见火焰，在身体内部
以水的方式燃烧
以雾的方式缠绕

A Chinese Primary School

First it’s located in a temple
Then in a clan hall
20 years after I graduated from it
It’s shifted to the top of a hill
Four tiled brick houses serving as its classrooms
Staff quarters and offices
The canteen close to the toilet
Birds chirping on the sports ground
A lame track
Half gravel and half mud
---Chinese, a Chinese primary school
Murmuring the resounding name
And watching the National Flag flying
I recalled the Great Tiananmen
And Chairman Mao on it

《中华小学》

先在一个庙里
后在一个祠堂
我小学毕业廿年后
它搬迁至一个山岗
四间砖瓦房是教室
也是老师宿舍、办公的地方
食堂和厕所挨得很近很紧
操场上几只雀鸟叽叽喳喳
一条跛脚的跑道
半是砂石，半是泥土
——中华，中华小学
念叨这个响亮的名字
看见迎风飘扬的国旗
我想起伟大的天安门
和天安门上的毛主席

A Mop

From a new cloth
To an old one
Then to a mop

Its colour reduced
To less and less
As it gathered more and more
Poison

The metamorphosis of a person
And the life of one, too

“How can a life, so short
have been lived to such a shape?”

《一块抹布》

从一块新布
到一块旧布
再到一块抹布

身上的色彩
越来越少
体内的毒素
越来越多

这是一个人的蜕变
也是一个人的一生

“这一生很短啊，
怎么活成这等模样！”

Baoji Buddhist Temple at Chaoshan, 14th May *

That day
I saw sunlight of three kinds
The sunlight on the face of a gingko tree
The sunlight in the eyes of a young acolyte
And the sunlight in the depths of a poet’s heart

The gingko has lived a thousand years, revived from death
The young acolyte is a poor child, an orphan and an abandonee
While the poet is travelling, on the road of solitary practice, Buddhism-wise

* Chaoshan is the densely populated agglomeration in the east of Guangdong, the second largest metropolitan area after the Pearl River Delta, with its distinctive language, food, and music as well as being the ancestral region of many diasporic Malaysians, Singaporeans, and Thais of Chinese descent. The spread of Buddhism peaked under the Tang Dynasty (from A.D. 618) which, during its rule over a re-unified China and contiguous protectorates, effectively upheld Buddhism as a state cult.

《5月14日，曹山宝积禅寺》

这一天
我看见三种阳光
一株银杏树脸上的阳光
一个小沙弥眼睛里的阳光
一个诗人心灵深处的阳光

银杏树历经千年，死而复生
小沙弥是个穷孩子，孤儿，弃儿
诗人在独自修行的路上