Medical Consultation over a Cucumber *

One has to act like a peasant woman
by abandoning the books
forgetting about the family it belongs to
and figuring out by experience
why it wilts
when the male flowers have just sprung

the compound fertilizer, at a ratio of 1:3
I buried, shallowly, to the depth of one finger, in the soil, on the left of the seedling
And I regularly watered it and loosened the soil, as the tendrils just curled up
ruthlessly dealing with any flying insects or ants
as fragile as flowers myself
I would often sink in the tenderness of its multi-downs
each tiny cucumber beneath the flowers
as quiet as a baby

what condition is it suffering from?
I have all the concerns of a peasant woman
I look back at the planting in spring, the transplanting, the fertilizing…
and this morning
when my Little Black, for the third day in a row
raised his fourth leg
shot at it with a man’s stoutness
it dawned on me in that instant
that life’s law
was sometimes suppressed in the over-abundance of nutrition

* Cucumber’s first medicinal use in China was first recorded during the seventh and eighth centuries of the Tang Dynasty (from A.D. 618 onwards) and regarded as having cooling, detoxifying, diuretic, and laxative effects as well as relieving burns and inflammation (not unlike the claims of occidental folk medicine).

《给一株黄瓜诊病》

必须像个资深农妇
摒弃书本
要忘记它所属科类
以经验判断
它在刚长出雄花的时候
为何就萎靡不振

复合肥一比三
我在瓜秧以左的泥土里浅埋一指
我也在它触须刚卷就定时浇水，松土
不留情任何飞虫，蝼蚁
有着花一般的脆弱
我常常陷入它众多绒毛的温柔里
花儿以下的每个小瓜
婴儿般沉静

是什么病？
我拥有所有农妇的置疑
回顾春播，移秧，施肥……
而这个清晨
当我家的小黑持续三天
抬起它的第四条腿
以男人般的魁梧对准它射击时
我瞬间明朗
生命的法则
有时也憋屈在营养过盛里

Thinking of a Beauty

Everyone who takes a walk along the Miluo River *
Thinks of a beauty at the sight of the fragrant grasses and if they do so
They’ll think of Madame Xiang

There is also a river in my village. When the water rises
And breaks the branches of agastache rugosus **
The scent will run around the village with the water
When countless beautiful ones appear
They roll up their cotton dresses and hold their bamboo baskets
Taking down one reed leaf after another, palm-wide

The most beautiful one, squatting by the water, is washing
And talks about Qu Yuan, the grains of the water overlapping those of the leaves ***
That makes her sparkle as well. I can’t help
But remembering rumour after rumour in the village about her
“Good looks that led to an abject life…”
Bad for her husband and her son, an abandoned one
A widow of abused love
And I often hear stories of love outside the village
From her chewed words

“I have a bitter fate that has to be offset with living---"

Years gone, and it’s not till today
That I have realized that her relationship with her village was clean
And the rice zongzi dumplings did have contents
Someone must have had a finger in it
That led to her bad reputation

* Miluo River (l. 1): a major tributary to the Xiang (l. 3) in the north of the south-eastern province of Hunan and part of the watershed of the Dongting Lake.
** Agastache rugosus (l. 5): a native, perennial aromatic plant of the mint family and one of some fifty basic herbs associated with traditional Chinese medicine, agastache said to relieve nausea and vomiting.
*** Qu Yuan (l. 11), considered the first author of verse whose work was attributed by name, suicided by wading into the Miluo holding a rock on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in B.C. 278. Attempts to rescue the poet according to popular folklore have led to his connexion with the Duanwu or Double Fifth Festival—better known in the West as the Dragon Boat Festival—and with the ritual of dropping rice dumplings or zongzi (l. 22) to prevent fish from eating the poet’s flesh.

《思美人》

每个在汨罗江畔散步的人
看到香草便想到美人，想到
美人便想到湘夫人

我的村庄也有一条河，河水涨高时
野藿香的枝桠被冲折
香气就随着流水围绕村子
多少个美人出现了
她们挽起布衣，提着竹篮
摘下一张张掌宽的粽叶

最美的一个蹲在水边浣洗
谈起屈原，水纹与粽叶的纹理正好重叠
闪着耀眼的强光
她也熠熠生辉。我按捺不住
想起她在村里的一次又一次流言
“好看的人偏有一身贱命……”
克夫弃子
寡妇滥情
而我常从她的咬文嚼字里
听到村子以外的风情

“我命苦，惟有以命相抵——”

多少年，我的今天
才读懂她和村子的关系是清白的
粽子与她的风情是有内涵的
当年，一定是有人动了手脚
她才没有好名声

The Old Man Who Inscribes the Tombstones

A career for life
One that keeps the mouths alive
For 40 years, the man has been running
This shop that is less than 10 square metres

The business is obviously slack
More often I see him playing poker games
With a number of other old men, in front of his shop
Across the table lies an unfinished tombstone
When they throw the cards
The scattered ashes in the seams between the characters “Mr So and So”
Drop fluttering over their cloth shoes
White and grey, white and grey…

《刻墓碑的老人》

一生的行当
养家糊口的行当
40年，老人还经营着
不到十平米的店铺

生意显然有些冷淡
更多时，我见他和几位老人
在店铺前玩纸牌
桌面是横铺着尚未完工的石碑
老人们尽兴甩牌时
“某某公之墓”字缝里的散灰
就飘飘地落在他们布鞋上
灰白，灰白的……

The Old Street

The old street equals old lanes, old houses, an old temple and an old dialect

the old street is kept alive by a coffin shop, a blacksmith’s shop, a shop selling funeral wreaths, a tailor’s shop, a butchery, a shop of tombstones, a shop selling boilers, and a shop selling braised pork seasoned with soy bean paste

the shops on the old street hardly ever engage pretty young girls for attention

they hardly ever hang Business License with bright red seals *

and they hardly have shop signs in shining neon lights---they do decent business good products at cheap prices

operating by day and resting by night

many are the people who play card games in front of the old street shops

many are the people who consult the oracle or practice physiognomy

and many are the people, by the roadside, who have guasha scraping therapy** or acupuncture

more, too, are the houses, marked for demolition, with eye-catching words around the trees

because they are dirty, messy and bad

the old street looks senile, on its last legs

but this summer it has turned quite arrogant

rejecting one developer

after another who wanted to hurt its bones and change its face

* Bright red seals (l. 6): red ink or cinnabar paste (derived from mercury sulphide) is typically used with wooden or stone square or rectangular seals as the traditional means of proving identity. First used as a symbol of the divine legitimacy of the Qin Dynasty in B.C. 221, it is still, albeit in circular form, used by China’s government nowadays.
** Gua sha (l. 12): a traditional medical treatment in China used to remove unhealthy bodily matter and thereby regenerate injured muscles and relieve skeletal pain. It involves repetitious stroking and pressing over lubricated skin with smoothed or blunt instruments, be they metallic or stone or even animal bones and horns.

《老街》

老街等于老巷。老宅。老庙。老方言
老街被棺材铺。铁匠铺。花圈铺。
裁缝铺。宰猪铺。墓碑铺。锅炉铺。酱肉铺。养活
老街的铺子少请阿妹帮衬招揽
少挂盖大红章的营业执照
少打霓光闪烁的招牌……本分营生
物美价廉
日出而营，日落而休
老街铺前聊天打牌的人多
路旁占卦相面的人多
树下刮痧针灸的人多
树两侧写上醒目拆字的房子也越来越多
贴上脏，乱，差
老街有些老态龙钟，苟延残喘
而这个夏天，它突然老气横秋
拒绝一个

With a Mere Blow of Wind

For instance, if the gardenia in the hills gently dance, in their white
garments
with their water sleeves, the poisonous wasps will get drunk

or, if the dandelions under the pear trees plan to elope for long distances
the flowers of the reed will drift across the river

and if I take a bite of the sweet melon in my vegetable plot
I’ll see the village at the foot of the hills sink, half by half, into the
quivering sunset

All these will happen, with a mere blow of wind. And if Mother calls me
by my pet name
Things, like the strike of a match, will come alive in the pervasive smoke
and fire

《只要一阵风》

比如山冈的栀子花，轻轻舞起水袖
一袭素衣，赤毒的黄蜂就成了醉徒

比如梨树下的蒲公英，计划远距离私奔
同苇絮手牵手，淌过对面的河

比如现在，我咬一口菜地里的甜瓜
看山下村子半截半截跌进抖动的夕光

这些都只要一阵风。还有母亲唤我的乳名
经火柴皮摩擦，就会在弥漫的烟火里活色生香