Entering a Grain of Snow
I, guided by limpid souls, enter a grain of snow.
The sacred peak of the snow, as legend has it, has white clouds circling around it.
The seawater below the peak has shells.
And there are spots of blue sky on them.
进入一粒雪
被澄澈的灵魂指引的我进入一粒雪。
传说中的雪的神峰白云缭绕。
神峰下的海水里有贝壳。
贝壳上,天空里一点点蓝的颜色。
The Fish Language
We communicate in fish language.
We dive into water and swim towards the sky.
We share the same strange interests or sudden sadness.
Water enters running into my blood. I try to translate a certain ancient and pleasurable detail——
A page of codes. A line of inscriptions. A gift of dream.
But the eternal untranslatable, your bronze mirror of lotus pattern, the wise words you have planted, the forgotten things of mine after you met me for the first time, your bravery and benevolence.
Your dawn of millet seedlings, at this very moment.
鱼语言
我们用鱼的语言交流。
我们潜入水下,游向天空。
我们分享同一种陌生的兴趣或者突如而来的忧伤。
一些水流进了我的血液。我试图破译某种古老的令人愉快的细节——
一页密码。一行墓志铭。一个梦的赠礼。
可是,那永恒的难以破译的,你青铜的菱镜,你栽下的智慧的言辞,你第一次见到我又遗忘了我的,你的勇敢和慈悲。
你此刻的黍苗的黎明。
Silent Things Have Nothing to Gain
The wind has carried off more fallen leaves.
The wind is blowing the empty orange trees.
The hands of light dance the momentary flowing after-glow on the branches. The fruit laid aside.
These are the ones that have caused the passers-by to forget: the fruit of the orange tree that lacks in the skills of speculation and serious passion. Each of them barefoot, asleep, their juice crushing the sundowning at dusk.
Silent things have nothing to gain. In a morning when the ground is yellow and flowers open, a river carries them away. They bear the running waters as the running waters bear these things. When the next season arrives, the riverwater turns cool and they’ll return, soundlessly, to their original place.
The river goes the rounds, washing the windows all the way. Tiles. Washing hearts
that are hurrying along.
The dense, fishscale-like light is flowing softly. Many times, these waters may suddenly go through the day’s vision, entering a secret peak or a strange current.
I can see an ancient story happening in an instant and disappear in another.
静默的事物一无所获
风吹落了更多的树叶。
风吹空荡荡的橘树。
光的手婆娑枝头片刻流霞。果实弃置一旁。
使路人遗忘了的,橘的果缺少投机的本领和严肃的热情。它们一个个光着脚,打着瞌睡,汁水压裂了黄昏的落日光景。
静默的事物一无所获。地黄花开的早晨,一条河流带走了它们。它们承载那些流水,流水也承载这些事物。下一个季节来临,河水开始变得清凉,它们又会无声无息地回到原来的地方。
河流巡行,一路清洗窗子。瓦片。清洗一些匆匆赶路的内心。
那些绵密的、鱼鳞一样的光温柔流淌。很多时候,这些水也会突然穿过白天的视野,进入一个秘密的山峰或者一条陌生的江流。
我看见一个古老的故事在瞬间发生,又在瞬间消失不见。
Water at Night
Part of the water, moon on its back, is walking through the wind. That you must have been gazing at for a long time.
The fishscales of this moonlight, across riverbanks and evenings, through the mocking laughter of the pinetrees on the way, have arrived at an unknown port.
The silk of the water is newly woven, the first snow fed into the tapestry. You’ve forgotten pain of all kinds.
Throughout the night, you hear nothing else but the sound of water.
夜之水
一些水驮着月亮涉风行走。你肯定长久的注视过。
这月光鳞片,越过几条河岸和傍晚,越过途径的松树们的嘲笑,到达某个不知名的港口。
水的丝绸刚刚织成,初雪喂养在织锦里。你忘记了种种痛楚。
除了彻夜不息的水声,你听不见任何声音。
Dry Grass and the Flowing Water
One always assumes you are better than water.
Some, holding their new-born babies in their arms, have come to bathe them. In the dry grass, a young cricket is dying.
Birds scan the rivers, they baptize the babies, they heal the cricket, they gather dark clouds and petals, planting them in the lower ground. They hope the yellow dry grass, like the running water, still retain the will, rich in hearted soul and soft smells.
Details, at deep levels, are still and continuing.
You were, after all, running water, originally. On the same night, people made the discovery.
干草和流水
人们总认为你比流水好。
一些人怀抱刚出生的婴儿前来浴洗。枯草中,一只年轻的蟋蟀奄奄一息。
鸟儿扫视一条条河流,它们给婴儿施洗,给蟋蟀疗伤,它们将乌云和花瓣一一收集,植入更低处的土地。鸟儿们希望枯黄的干草和流水一样,仍然富有心灵的意志和柔软的气息。
一些深层次的细节阒静而持续。
原本你就是流水。同一个夜晚人们发现。
Qing Shui, the pen name of Zhu Hongli, was born in 1971 in Shanghai (translatable as “upon the sea”), China’s most populous city located in the Yangtzse River Delta under the direct control of the central government. Although its vernacular language is a dialect of Taihu Wu, Mandarin and English have fast supplanted it for Qing Shui’s generation.
Apart from many anthologies, she has been widely published in China in such literary magazines as Shichao (Wave of Poetry), Shilin (Forest of Poetry), Xingxing (Stars), Zhongguo shiren (Chinese Poets), Shanghai shiren (Shanghai Poets), Shi xuankan (Selected Poetry), Shige yuekan (Poetry Monthly), and Sanwenshi shijie (The World of Prose Poetry). The following prose poems are from her collection of Chinese prose poems centred upon the natural world, Night Light at Soft Grass, other examples from which were translated by Ouyang Yu for the volume, Poems of Wu Suzhen, Yue Xuan & Qing Shui [Asia Pacific Series 13] (Sydney & Tokyo: Vagabond Press, 2017) for which this Issue’s other translator, Cui Yuwei, provided an introduction.