The Still Vase - Zou Shengnian / 作者/邹胜念

Zou Shengnian / 作者/邹胜念



(译者/威尔·斯宾塞)
(Translator/ Will Spence)




The Still Vase

Because my heart is restless,
this vase cannot be still.
It is a vessel waiting to break and
shatter me and
condemn the flowers and
expose the lie that lies beneath
all bounded beauty.
Overflowing waters,
sudden movements,
acts of carelessness—
cracked porcelain.
All life’s danger neatly arranged
in a single object and
placed carefully on desks and windowsills
and brightly-lit halls.
From fences and fields and flower markets,
from the hands of farmers,
from under the noses of blind men—
from whenever you sever the flower’s head
the glazed body of the vase stands ready
to receive it.
I first picked wildflowers
on the grasslands
many years ago.
Who would have thought
after all this time
that I’d keep committing this sin,
not out of pride
but simple pity for the emptiness
of the vase.
Because my heart is restless,
this vase must be still.
Stillness as loyalty,
stillness as lie—
after ten days
the still yellowing, decomposing contents
and after a hundred years
my own still departure from the world.
Still—the bloated belly
that longs to swallow spring.
Pathetic—the life nourished
by any light that happens to fall its way…
the small acts of kindness
that brighten my still-pathetic porcelain heart.




花瓶安静

因我不平之心，它已不是安静的花瓶。
像是待爆的容器，随时置我以碎裂，
置花以短命，置天下以束腰之美后的假与崩溃。
水满、突刺、一不留神的歪倒与瓷裂……
它将所有危机巧妙聚合，并安插在
案头、窗台、富丽的厅堂内……
从栅栏、田野、花市、
农民手中、盲人鼻下……无论何处
你随时折来的花瓣头颅，它随时以釉身托住。
那年在草原，我摘下野花几束。
千里迢迢，谁能想到
无休止地犯下采撷之罪，不为凌云壮志
只因惦念一只饥饿的花瓶。
因我不平之心，它必须是安静的花瓶。
它安静时的忠诚与虚妄，
它安静十天后体内的浑黄与溃烂，
它安静百年后我的不甘与永别人世。
它安静……
它用来吞掉春天的野心安静大腹安静，
它可怜……它得到一隅光照时，
亦如我被施舍，亦如我玻璃之心可怜的安静。



*



Beach

The golden seawater
rises toward me like too much money.
A fishing boat enters
the right side of the harbour.
When the crane lifts the net from the hold
fish fall like shooting stars,
vanishing into the void.
Beside me lies a girl,
two snakes mate silently on her belly,
their eyes fixed on mine.
In a blissful illusion that feels like dying
my soul leaves my body,
returning to a honeyed afterglow
that coats my arms, my back,
the soles of my feet.
On the still-warm sand,
I cannot exhaust this happiness.
I tease two small green crabs
who cut my fingers.
I try to use the pain
as evidence that I have existed
but my blood is washed away
by the waves—
and I let this little part of me
wander out blind
into the deep, indifferent sea.




海滩

金色的海水，恍若金钱不断地涌向我。
渔船驶入海滩右边的港口，起吊机
将船舱里的渔网猛地拉起，
——鱼，有的宛如流星，坠落；
而其他的……失踪在我视线的盲区。
有个女孩，躺在我身旁，不说话，
她腹部的纹身：两条交媾的蛇，眼睛正望着我。
我在一种舒服得快要灭亡的幻觉里，
感到灵魂离开……又重新拜访我的身体。
蜂蜜般的余晖，令我的手臂、后背、脚掌……
逐渐发腻发稠。
余温未息的沙滩上，快乐怎么也用不完。
我逗弄着两只小青蟹，它们夹伤了我的手指。
我试图用疼痛找出我存在过的证据，
微不足道的流血正被海浪稀释，卷走。
我试图以此完成——
一部分的自己向深海茫然无措地出走。



*


Autumn Begins

Autumn begins with the crab
lifting its eyes to mine.
I am ruthless with
the flame, the ginger, the vinegar—
the smell of flesh
confusing with the orange mist.

In love,
I am more brutal than this.
The Great Compassion Mantra is
faintly audible now,
but only when the fire of the heart dies
will others come to gather
beside the wooden coffin
and finish this prayer.

Often, the crab spoils
before it dies.
The stench, the soft collapsing meat—
like pale morning frost,
making the stones believe themselves gentle,
and the barren hills
blur into a distant lover’s breasts.

Autumn’s beauty has another face and it is
the suffering that shadows excess:
the pomegranate tree rushing to bear fruit;
the taut birdsong.
Autumn turns from affection to retribution—
from one act of cruelty
to another,
to many,
until I am its master. 




秋始

——秋天，从螃蟹望着我的眼神开始。
我是狠心的。
大火、葱姜、醋、腥味………最后化作
一团团橙黄的雾。

我爱一个人时，比这更残忍。
……若隐若现的《大悲咒》
在心火熄灭时，才能有另外的一些人
围着木棺，将它唱念完整。

更多时候，是一只螃蟹在运输中，
未死先腐。
异味、细菌、渣状肉糜……像今晨淡淡的白霜，
让石头以为自己温柔了，
让荒凉山包，模糊如遥远的情人的双乳。

秋天，美的另一面，是事物横行后的苦楚。
院子里，石榴树匆匆结下果，
鸟鸣，像绷紧的音乐。
秋天，由喜爱转为行刑开始……
从把一次狠心到无数次狠心，练熟
为止。



*


Qinghai Lake (Excerpt)

1.

I came from the lowlands,
walking like a goose—
panting, lips purple,
quick to anger.
Breath itself
required negotiation with God,
as the long road rose toward you
like a cow’s tongue
licking at the truth of your standing.
This is my second visit to see you.
Since my first visit
(those endless green days)
I got married.
Mist on the mountains,
pregnant with something.
Fields of yellow flowers,
where the sheep’s bellies
hollow, then swell once more.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want you.
I couldn’t—
your blue
refused to follow me home.


2.

Around your birth,
even the grasses and trees seemed ready
to take new forms.
I am thirty-seven now, and
sometimes I want to leave my body behind.
Your blue waters with no Adam’s apple
ripple like the world’s beginning,
giving shape to my ‘midlife crisis’.
Yes, this time I have brought new language
with me to the plateau:
on-trend terms of the age, invasive species
like ‘premature aging’ and ‘little death’.
I wanted to see if they dared
approach your waters…
but you alone are the master
of transformation.
Your waves under the sun are joyful in their
endless surging and emptying,
as I cup you in my hands and
cattle and sheep drink from you and
speedboats scythe through you,
opening white wounds on your surface and pain
that descends downwards like scripture
into a world with its own directions.
Back here on the plateau, even rotted wood
is considered young, full of promise.
Only you
are truly old.


3.

This is the highest place on earth,
God’s own country.
White felt tents hold the lives of the herders;
prayer flags carry their messages skyward in
stirring, rolling streaks of
red, yellow, blue, green, white.
Around the white stupa,
the lake waters and prayer flags
quiet the mind.
In the painted sutras,
the majestic lion and the great peng bird
ascend in widening circles.
Such grandeur exists
only because something must be spoken
to the higher powers.
The mani piles rise
with the tacit consent of the stones:
a single line of poetry
measured over and over
by flowers and the Tibetan tongue.
It is late summer;
when the rapeseed fields shimmer golden,
enclosing any wanderer.
At the lake’s edge,
confession and breath
trade places,
and when I turn,
my beloved
has crossed from the other world
to stand beside me.


4.

As the boat nears the shore,
it turns back—
the reading is not over.
The boat moves back like a sentence
through emotion and the small events of the day.
Facing the lake’s centre (a suspended island)
which voice could ever claim to be universal?
The host’s voice is too metallic.
He switches languages,
turning the coin
from one face to the other, and it is enough:
in the sound of one face
we find meaning again
in the other. The endless poem holds us on the lake,
our hearing scattered across different nations.
Communication is an illusion;
arrival is the only certainty.
When the reading is interrupted, the boat’s horn speaks
in a startling language without colour,
gathering the poet’s hidden companions:
the drunkards and smokers and politicians;
all the voices marked as Other.
Then the roar, blood that
contains both sorrow and excitement—
striking at the edges of its own outline,
a form without a history
or an exit.




青海湖（节选）

1

我从低处来，像鹅一样行走。
——气喘、唇紫、多嗔，
呼吸，变成了需和造物主重新商榷的难事。
一条漫长公路像牛舌，舔舐你身居高位的意义。
第二次造访你。在两次中间（翠绿多汁的日子里），
我已将婚事完成。
云霭朦胧，群山在天边受孕，
遍野黄花，羊群之腹瘪下……又隆起。
不是不想。没能娶你，
是因为当年，你的蓝不肯跟我走。


2

围绕着你出世，草木皆有化形之心，
我年有三十七，偶尔，想舍弃身体。
无喉结的碧波，荡漾成世界之初，
也将一种“中年危险”具像化。
此番，我将“初老”、“微死”……
一些时髦网络语（外来物种）带进了高原，
看它们胆敢拜访你的水体。
——但你才是化形的高手。
阳光下，水波欢快，
一遍一遍推搡、清空自己。
我鞠起你，牛羊喝着你，
快艇如匕首，几道白花花的伤口给了你。
而疼痛如经文，朝水面之下深深扩散，
——那是另一个五方世界。
高原上，朽木也是年轻有为者，
真正年事已高的，唯有你。


3

最高的人间：神的故乡。
白毡房搭起牧人的今生，风马旗在传送祷文，
云朵下方，红、黄、蓝、绿、白，都在翻滚。
白塔周围，湖水与经幡让人安详，
经变中，雄狮与鹏鸟，扶摇直上。
——雄伟场面的构成，是因有话要对高处说，
而玛尼堆，建立在石头的默契之上，
一行诗，被花儿和藏语反复丈量。
这是夏末，油菜黄灿烂，围着流浪之人荡漾。
大湖边，坦白与喘息交替，
当我转身，爱人，已从世外来到身旁。


4

船快靠岸时，又返航，
——因朗诵会还未结束。船像个句子，
在不同事件和情绪里滑行，
面对湖心（孤岛般的悬置），哪种声音更具普适性？
主持人的嗓音有金属质地，当他更换语种，
像在分别使用硬币的正反两面。
但已足够，我们听取一面，
又在另一面重新得到价值。
是一首永不会结束的诗，将我们滞留在湖上，
并将听觉分布在不同国度。
沟通是幻觉。触岸，是命中注定的事。
当朗诵中断，
船的鸣笛声，是另一种没有肤色的语言。
——惊悚、刺耳，聚拢了诗人隐藏的酒徒、烟鬼
政客……与一切他者般的声音；
——轰鸣，如同悲伤又兴奋的血液，
冲撞着自身年代不详、没有出口的轮廓。




***


Zou Shengnian is a renowned poet from Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. She is a graduate of the School of Chinese Language and Literature at Beijing Normal University. Her work has appeared in leading literary journals including People's Literature (Renmin Wenxue), Poetry Periodical (Shi Kan), Chinese Writers (Zhongguo Zuojia), and October (Shiyue). She participated in both the 40th Youth Poetry Conference organised by Poetry Periodical and the 2025 International Youth Poetry Conference.Zou has received the Mao Dun Literature Prize New Talent Award, the Poetry Periodical Annual Young Poet Award, the Poetry Periodical Long Poem Award, the Yangtze River Poetry Award, the Li Bai Poetry Award, and the Zijin Mountain Literature Prize, among other honours. Her work has been included in recommened reading lists published by the China Contemporary Literature Research Association and the Yangtze River Literary Review, among other organisations. She is the author of several poetry collections, including The Kneeling Figurine (Futing Yong) and Small Comforts (Xiao Anning).


邹胜念，著名诗人，江苏南京人，毕业于北师大文学院。作品见于《人民文学》《诗刊》《中国作家》《十月》等刊物，参加《诗刊》社第40届青春诗会、2025国际青春诗会，获茅盾新人奖、《诗刊》年度青年诗人奖、《诗刊》“新时代长诗奖”、扬子江诗学奖、李白诗歌奖、紫金山文学奖等。作品入选中国当代文学研究会、《扬子江文学评论》等年度文学排行榜，出版诗集《伏听俑》《小安宁》等。



*


Will Spence is Chinese-to-English translator of fiction and non-fiction. His work includes The Unfilial by Yao Emei (Sinoist, 2024); The Book of Secrets by Xinran (Bloomsbury, 2024); That Which Can’t Be Washed Away by Xu Huaizhong (ACA, 2023); China Adorned by Deng Qiyao (Thames & Hudson, 2022); and The Promise by Xinran (Bloomsbury, 2019), for which he was shortlisted for the Society of Authors First Translation award in 2020.


威尔·斯宾塞是一位从事中英翻译的译者。他的译作包括姚鄂梅的《家庭生活》（Sinoist出版社，2024年）等。因翻译《承诺》，他于2020年入围了英国作家协会首部翻译奖短名单。