Returning Home - Miao Kegou / 缪克构

Miao Kegou / 缪克构






Returning Home

Lightning flashes，illuminating the path.

Thunder rumbles, traveling inland from the distant sea.

A night of heavy rain washes over a village steeped in salt.

Before the sun rises,

the earth is fertile.

This pool of water is enough to briefly dilute

the salt of a family, leaving no traces.

From the sea to Shanghai, twenty years have passed.

The heavy rain still drives waves, chasing after me.

Whether on broad streets or in narrow alleys,

I’ll never turn into salt in the sun.

I have grown used to forgetting,

to heaping spoonful of sugar into life.

Returning home, the salt in my bones

seeps into the corners of my eyes, bit by bit.

It’s those dreams that lead me back to hometown.






返乡

闪电，亮一亮路

雷声从海上一路寻来

大雨的夜，洗涤一个多盐的村庄

在太阳升起来之前

大地是丰润的

这一泓了无痕迹的水

足够一个家族短暂稀释了咸

从海上到上海，二十年过去了

大雨还在驱赶波涛追逐着我

不管在宽阔的街道还是狭窄的弄堂

我再也不会在阳光下化作盐

我习惯了遗忘，适应了在生命中加入大勺的糖

返乡，让骨头里的盐

一点点咸到我的眼角

是那些梦，牵我回到故乡

*

A Brief History of Antie

Born as a posthumous daughter,

raised as a child bride,

becoming a widow by the middle age,

burdened in the old age

by two kids left by her electrocuted daughter-in-law,

Auntie would sigh to herself, lamenting that

her life was more bitter than coptis roots.

She was grateful that her parents lived long

and her half-brother’s family was thriving.

Yet her life, she had to live alone.

She endured, she persevered,

until she slowly grew into the likeness of a grandmother.

Her mother lived to 92.

Auntie must also be a long-lived person.

In a family of hardships,

what a blessing it is to live to a ripe old age.






大姑小史

生而为遗腹女，少女时作童养媳

中年时失去了丈夫

老来，又需替触电而亡的媳妇抚养两个孩子

大姑自叹一生苦比黄连

她庆幸父母长寿

同母异父的弟弟子孙满堂

但日子还得自己过

她熬着，熬着

逐渐老成祖母的样子

——祖母享寿九十有二

大姑一定也是长寿之人

一个苦难的家族

长命百岁，是多大的福报

*

A Brief History of Uncle-in-Law

My uncle-in-law loved painting tigers.

Who his rural painting teacher was remains unknown.

What is sure is the skill died out after him.

His four sons searched far and wide

but couldn’t find his early ubiquitous murals

in the old demolished house on the Jiangnan plain.

The tigers he painted were incredibly lifelike,

so vivid that even a light touch of one of its golden hairs

would evoke a thunderous roar from a distant jungle by the sea

or from beneath the feet between two layers of floorboards.

In his younger years he travelled the East China Sea,

hearing the sound of crashing waves.

In his old age he was bedridden for ten years,

hearing the noise from the deep dark abyss.

His only surviving work is a rooster,

painted on the door panel of his living room.

Its two claws were positioned at different heights

and dug into the wood in the powerful shape of “八”.

Its tail feathers were held high, overtopping the upright comb.

Its sharp beak, with an eagle’s pride,

seemed to have ruled the sky, slain tigers.

However, these are my fancies —

When it turns its head sharply, its eyes

are set in a knot on the board,

refusing to reveal its thoughts or feelings,

not even the slightest emotional fluctuation.






姨父小史

姨父生前喜爱画虎

求艺于哪位乡间画师已不可考

反正，自他之后这门手艺断了

他的四个儿子踏破铁鞋

也未能在江南平原已被拆除的老宅里

找到他早年无所不在的壁画

他画的老虎纤毫毕现

随意轻抚其中的一根金黄的毛发

都会传来惊雷般的虎啸

仿佛来自遥远的海边丛林

又仿佛来自脚下，两层地板的夹缝之间

早年他闯过东海，声音

只能来自翻卷的涛声

晚年他卧床十年，声音

也只能来自沉沉的深渊

姨父存世的作品却是一只公鸡

画于自家厅堂的门板上

两只鸡爪一高一低

扎成遒劲有力的八字

尾翼高高扬起，盖过挺立的鸡冠

它尖锐的喙子，存有雄鹰的骄傲

仿佛占据过蓝天，仿佛刺杀过猛虎

不过，这些都是我的臆测——

它猛回头时，眼睛

被设置在木板的一块疤痕上，因此，

别奢望能看出它的所思所想

甚至一点点的心里波动

*

Back

Father lay prone on my small bed,

His sturdy build made it stable and solid.

I applied safflower oil on his injured back with my tiny hands.

In my memory this is the only intimate moment between us.

Rough and hard, his back hurt my hands.

Yet it carried the weight of our family,

and sheltered us from wind and storm.

Towering as his back is, how comes I feel so distant?

He faced the wind and rain more often

but forgot to stoop down and carried me on his back.

At this moment he returned to my sight,

leaving his pain on the bed

and emerging from the blurred past.

My hands trembled.

I tried to calm them down and press the oil carefully.

My eyes burned, so did my hands.

The oil on my father’s back seeped into my cuts,

burning and numbing my hands and my whole body.

Father remained still, as if asleep

or lost in the gentle massage I was giving him.

This moment of closeness exhausted all the strength of my life

but it couldn’t stop my father’s back

from sinking fast into the earth.

— Father’s back would never move again.

It became as plain as the land,

The balance of our lives tilted, too.






背

父亲俯卧在我的小床

他厚实的身材使小床显得平稳、扎实

裸露着的背部黝黑，像一块船板

而我用一双小手给他撞伤的背部抹上红花油

——记忆中这是我与父亲唯一的一次亲密

他的背粗糙、坚硬，弄疼了我的小手

是这堵背为我们负起了一个家

为风雨中漂泊的小船遮风挡雨

父亲的背这般伟岸，却为何让我感觉遥远？

——他更多地迎向风雨

却忘了伏身当一回我的坐骑

这一刻，他回到了我的眼前

把伤痛真实地留给床

他终于从模糊的背景中凸现出来

让我的小手受宠若惊

我努力让它们停止颤抖并加上力气细细涂抹

我的双眼被灼伤，双手被灼伤

抹在父亲背部的红花油侵入我的伤口

灼热、麻木的感觉从手上递向全身

而父亲纹丝不动像已入睡

或者正沉湎于我细小的按摩

这一次亲密几乎用尽我一生的力气

但未能阻挡父亲的背飞速地贴向土地

——父亲的背再也不会摆动了

他变得与大地一样平实

但我们生活的天平已经倾斜






-(Translated to English by Li Dan)






Miao Kegou, a poet and writer, was born at Wen Zhou, a city near the East China Sea in 1974. He began to create poems from middle school in the year of 1990. In 1995 he was selected as one of the Top Ten University Writers in China. From then on, Miao started to write novels. His works include the collection of poems, such as Flowing Alone (2003), Timing Alchemy (2015), The Family Of Salt (2018), and Only Slow Boats Arrive (2026); novels and proses, such as Drift Bottle, A Young Boy At The Sea，Scream Of A Yellow Croaker and etc. Many of his works have been translated into other languages.
The critics believe that his world of poems covers wide topics and is full of aesthetic thoughts from his lifetime experience. In particular, the writing of ‘Family History’ and ‘A Biography of Mortal’ fulfill the unique and fresh sense and imagination that contains sea style, which also has both identical and distinguished values of anthropology and the history of custom.
Miao is a member of the Chinese Writers Association (CWA). His news works have been awarded for many times, including the First and Second Prizes of the Chinese News Award, the Golden Prize of Chinese Newspaper Supplement, Shanghai Literature Award, and Shanghai News Award of Changjiang and Taofen.


缪克构，诗人，作家。1974年出生于东海之滨的温州。1990年中学时代开始诗歌创作，1995年大学时期被评为中国十大校园作家，同时开始小说创作。迄今主要诗歌结集为《独自开放》（2003）、《时光的炼金术》（2015）、《盐的家族》（2018）、《只有慢船可以抵达》（2026）。另有自选集、小说、散文作品《渔鼓》《漂流瓶》《少年海》《黄鱼的叫喊》等。部分诗歌和短篇小说被翻译推介到国外。
评论家认为，他的诗歌世界疆域广阔，充满个人生命经验的在场与唯美主义的哲理思考。特别是其“家族史”、“凡人小传”的写作，生成了饱含海洋气息的新鲜而别致的意象与想像，具有强烈的辨识度和独特的人类学与风俗史价值。
现为中国作家协会会员。文汇报社社长。主要作品曾获首届中国海洋诗歌成就奖，中国新闻奖一、二等奖，中国报纸副刊作品金奖以及上海文学奖、上海长江韬奋奖等。