Homage to Dufu's Cottage - Yang Lian / 杨 炼

Yang Lian / 杨 炼






Homage to Dufu's Cottage

1.

Thirty years walked from this side to the other side of summer

thirty years     stepping into autumn

A glass of stronger wine

set before me     reflects a swallowed smile

Aroma of gardenia still sews up cracked dusk

The cottage is a straw boat     listens     to the sound of water within me

running past     but never out of

a shady green pond’s sighing diameter

Strolling in forest     my breath weaves through bamboo leaves

as I count the scattered raindrops     falling neatly to their death

Thirty years ago     the child turned away leaving disturbance in air

Dufu’s flower path once more     Dufu’s wooden door once more

Poets boarded their own deadly boats

painfully scrape this river bed of thirteen hundred years

Light like a blade of grass     despite gale’s carving

he never rejects what poverty and illness have

gifted him     The stone-mill he has pushed

grinds chimney smoke

that floats faintly     My maturity

is like a nation     grown accustomed to the beauty of sorrow

2.

A line of poetry’s dim corridor goes darker and darker

A line of poetry      in the quiet garden tourists dispersed

Bamboo touches the sound of wind      of rain      of birds

Drenched wild flowers resemble drenched human shapes

Give me twilight      thirty years

yellowing paper seeping through     two water surfaces seeping through

pushing further away his face and mine     A wooden bed a cold quilt

Catch up swallows     a faintly scented space continues to linger

in meanings lit up in left-out flesh and blood

Give me a life     unlike any other

but change all paths to shadow     He walks slowly

throws down at my side raindrops big as wine glasses

Clouds get darker     one candle’s light shines up from water’s depths

One summer’s chill comes out of one thousand summers

Let me     forget poetry only then return to

the warmth piercing through bones     a death more shocking than poetry

corrupted by worthless living now becomes hollow words

Yet I tread carefully on the sea’s edge press closely to

his silhouette      and forget to pay homage to a cottage

Thirty years     a cottage built board by board

I wander all over the world for an endless line of poetry

A history     without ruins

At a night when a myriad of twinkling lights offer sacrifices in heart

and nip buds tender and wet     forming in the same instant

Give me scarlet brilliance     a fragrance kept within

exudes at this moment     stars sprout with flickers

I am already that old and beautiful person     pure and clean     enough


(Translated by Kailan)







谒草堂

1

三十年　从夏天这边走到那边

三十年　酝酿着秋色

一杯更浓的浊酒

移至我面前　倒映咽下的笑

栀子香仍在缝合裂开的薄暮

草堂像草船　听　我自己的水声

流过　却未流出

绿荫荫的深潭叹息的直径

我漫步的鼻息拂低竹叶

数着疏雨　落入死亡的洁癖

三十年前　孩子转身丢下漩涡

又是花径　又是蓬门

登上诗人各自绝命的船

刮疼此地一千三百岁的河底

轻如一根草　任凭狂风镂刻的　

不拒绝贫病题赠的

结局　他推过的石磨　

磨着炊烟

淡淡飘散　我的成熟

像一个国度　习惯了忧伤之美

2

一行诗的幽暗甬道越走越暗

一行诗　园静游人散

竹林的竹杖点着风声　雨声　鸟声

浣洗的山花一如浣洗的人形

给我一个黄昏　渗出等了三十年的

发黄的纸　渗出两片水面远远推开的

两张脸　一架木床一张冷衾

追上燕子　暗香的空间不停退场

退至漏掉的血肉中亮起来的涵义

给我一种命　不同于每一条路

却把路都变成影子　他慢慢行走

在我身边掷落酒杯大的雨滴

云愈漆黑　一点烛火从水底远眺

一个夏天读出一千个夏天的寒意

给我这能力　忘记诗歌才终于返回

刺骨的温馨　比语言更惊人的死

被不值得的活冒犯成一句空话

而我小心踩过边缘的大海　紧挨

他的清瘦　忘记拜谒一座草堂

三十年才琐碎地一点点搭起一座草堂

一行没有尽头的诗用尽了漂泊一词

一个历史　没有败壁颓垣

当千家灯火在一夜那么深的心里祭祀

拈出嫩嫩湿湿的蕊　同一次生成

给我红艳　体内留住的香

薰香此刻　星斗明灭着发芽

我已是又老又美足够洁净那人

***




Yang Lian was born in Switzerland in 1955, and grew up in Beijing. His poems became well-known and influential inside and outside of China in the 1980s, especially when his sequence ‘Norilang’ was published in 1983. Yang Lian has published thirteen collections of poems, two collections of prose and one selection of essays in Chinese. His work has also been translated into more than twenty languages. His work has been reviewed as "one of the most representative voices of Chinese literature" and "one of the great world poets of our era". Yang Lian and the Scottish poet W. N. Herbert together with Brian Holton and Qin Xiaoyu are the co-editors of Jade Ladder, a brand new Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Poetry (1978 – 2008) in English, and published by Bloodaxe Books in Apr, 2012. Yang Lian has won Zuo Pin (Works) Magazine’s Prize for Sequence; The First Long Poem Prize; Great Kunlun Cultural Prize.Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Poetry; Capri International Poetry Prize; first “Tianduo” prize for the long poems; Nonino International Literature Prize in Italy, the juries of the prize were presided by V S Naipaul. Yang Lian has been elected a board member of PEN International in 2007, and re-elected in 2011. Yang Lian was recently a fellow of Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin for 2012 / 2013. Since 2014, he was invited to be the writer in residency and lecture professor in Shantou University.


杨 炼. 1955 年出生于瑞士，成长于北京。1983 年以长诗《诺日朗》轰动大陆诗坛，其后，作品被介绍到海外。杨炼的作品以诗和散文为主，兼及文学与艺术批评。他迄今共出版中文诗集十三种、散文集两种与一部文论集。他的作品已被译成二十余种外文，在各国出版。杨炼作品被誉为世界上当代中国文学最有代表性的声音之一。2012 年杨炼和英国诗人W N Herbert 等共同主编的英译当代中文诗选《玉梯》出版，此书为在英语世界确立当代中文诗思想和艺术标准的突破性作品。2014年，杨炼获得意大利著名的卡普里国际诗歌奖。2013年，杨炼以他的《同心圆》三部曲获中国首届“天铎”长诗奖。2012 年，杨炼获得由诺贝尔文学奖得主奈保尔任评审团主席的意大利诺尼诺国际文学奖。1999 年，杨炼获得意大利Flaiano 国际诗歌奖，同年他的诗集《大海停止之处》获英国诗歌书籍协会推荐英译诗集奖。杨炼于2008年和2011年两次以最高票当选为国际笔会理事，现任汕头大学驻校作家暨讲座教授。