I seek the reason slipping down from valleys,
Valley after valley
Gathers, moonlight merging with night,
Hiding in the shaded side of woods.
Tang Zhaohui is a writer and publisher, and a contracted writer of the Beijing Writers Association. Born in 1971 in Xiangxiang, Hunan Province, he once served as chief editor of the magazines Youth Literature and Tibet Cultural Geography. His published works include poetry collections Someone Speaks, Dream Speaker, Spiritual Medium and Words of the Soul; full-length non-fiction prose works Folding Fan, A Solitary Factory and Tempered into Steel; as well as art criticism collection Seduction and Resistance: A Decade of Contemporary Avant-Garde Art, among other books.
唐朝晖，作家，出版人，北京市作家协会签约作家。1971年出生，湖南湘乡人。曾任《青年文学》《西藏人文地理》杂志主编。出版有诗集《有人说话》《梦语者》《通灵者》《心灵物语》与长篇非虚构散文《折扇》《一个人的工厂》《百炼成钢》和艺术评论集《勾引与抗拒——当代先锋艺术十年纪》等图书。
Translated by Ma Yongbo
Turning Back
I seek the reason slipping down from valleys,
Valley after valley
Gathers, moonlight merging with night,
Hiding in the shaded side of woods.
I walk away from the crowd,
Step onto the second-floor balcony.
Time of childhood drifts away,
Earth shifts and overlays itself.
Leaves and petals of morning glories,
Broken time and again.
The earth unfolds its own garment,
I behold its fertile core
Wild weeds spreading far and wide.
Voices of children ring out,
Forget the weight of floating clouds.
One extra word slips unspoken,
I turn back amid endless searching.
折返
寻找山谷滑下来的原因
一个，又一个山谷
聚集，月光与夜晚一起
藏在树木的阴面
从人群中离开
上到二楼阳台
童年的时间
土地搬迁、覆盖
牵牛花的叶子、花瓣
一茬茬被折断
土地翻开自己的衣服
我看到了里面的肥沃
荒草遍野
孩子的声音
忘记云的沉重
又多说了一个字
我在寻找中折返
***
The fourth day of the eleventh lunar month,
I sat by the window all night, watching her till dawn
She said, Welcome back.
Standing outside the house,
I forgave myself for all my dull choices time and again.
I shook off the snow and stamped my feet. She said,
Let it be dirty.
What you bring home is meant to belong here.
I always knew she was not far away,
Yet today I stepped into her courtyard unawares.
She opened the door,
And I realized this was where I belonged all along.
I failed to catch the sound of her footsteps,
Only sensed death leaping across the snow glowing pale white,
Darting swiftly over rooftops and walls.
I kept staring,
Yet never saw where it finally vanished.
Only boundless snowflakes drift down, like sad ballads,
Bidding farewell to night after night.
By the reckoning of life,
Half my nights have slipped away.
Why did she open the door on such a bitter cold day?
—Because I was freezing.
十一月初四，通宵坐在窗前看了她一夜
她说，欢迎回来
站在屋子外面的我
原谅了自己一次次沉闷的选择
把雪抖抖，跺跺脚。她说
脏就脏点
带进家里的就是要回到家里
一直知道她在不远处
今天竟然转进了她的院子
她开了门
才知道自己住在这里
没有听出她的脚步声
听到了死亡在发着白光的雪地上
跃上屋顶，在墙头跑得飞快
我一直盯着
也没看见最终去了哪
只有漫天的雪，像一首首忧伤的歌
送别一个，又一个夜晚
根据生命的计算，我的夜晚
已经过半
她为什么打开了门，这么冷的天
——因为我冷
***
Goodnight
Plants sink into silence.
Listen, darkness
Grows deeper still.
“Falling purple” is a tiny flower,
A name I hold dear.
Insects dwell among shallow grass roots,
Soft milk scent of an infant’s breath.
Time creases and folds,
Worms crawl across furrows.
She is there.
The courtyard has grown old.
I wish to say far more than just goodnight to her.
Cao Xueqin’s spirit stone
Wandered through eighty chapters of transmigration.
A monk in past life once spoke:
Every river with water bears its own moon;
Beneath cloudless skies stretch boundless heavens.
With all these in mind,
I can whisper to her each night:
Goodnight.
晚安
植物沉进寂静
听着，黑暗
越来越黑
落紫是一种小花
一个我喜欢的名字
虫子住在草的浅根处
婴儿，呼吸的奶香
岁月打褶
虫子爬过沟壑
她在那里
院子老了
我不只想给她道一个晚安
曹雪芹的石头
轮回了八十章
前世的一个和尚说：
千江有水千江月
万里无云万里天
有了这些
我才能每晚为她道一声：
晚安
__________________
Read: The Ancient Capital in June
