Yesterday, dust from foreign lands clinging to my skin
I turned to my aged father
To beg for the patch of earth where my cord and placenta were laid to rest.
Cheng Lu
Cheng Lu, born in Shitou Street, Luochuan County, Shaanxi Province in June 1968, is a poet who also writes literary theories, non-fiction works, and historical studies on the Shaanxi-Gansu Revolutionary Base Area and the Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.
成路，1968年6月出生在陕西省洛川县石头街。诗人，兼写文艺理论、非虚构、陕甘革命根据地和中共中央西北局历史等作品。
Translated by Ma Yongbo
Father and Mother: The Twenty-Fifth Day of the Tenth Lunar Month, Year Ji Hai (Thursday)
— Why Do You Knock at My Lonely Gate
As Mother cried out her final throes giving birth to me,
Father took a sharp metal scissors and cut my umbilical cord
Father was a resident of a small northern town
He surely never knew
The despair of a kite flyer clutching a broken string, staring up at an empty sky
Yet he understood this truth
Burying half the umbilical cord and afterbirth deep in the earth is a hiding, a loosening of bonds
Yesterday, dust from foreign lands clinging to my skin
I turned to my aged father
To beg for the patch of earth where my cord and placenta were laid to rest
But he said to me
Your boarding pass for international flights bears no trace of my fingerprints.
Why do you knock at my lonely gate？?
父亲、母亲: 己亥年十月廿五（星期四）
——我的孤门你何必敲响
母亲生我喊出最后一声阵痛时，父亲便用钢口很好的剪刀
剪断了我的脐带
父亲是北方小镇上的居民
他一定没有见过
放风筝的人儿手捉断线仰望空空天的沮丧
可他知道——
把孩子的半截儿脐带和胎衣埋进大地深处，是掩藏，是解开系绊
昨天，我身上沾着异乡灰尘
向年迈的父亲
讨要埋葬我半截儿脐带和胎衣的大地
可他却说——
你乘坐国际航班的登机牌上不会留下我的指纹，我的孤门你何必敲响？
***
Father and Mother: The Twenty-Seventh Day of the Eighth Lunar Month, Year Xin Chou (Sunday)
— The Hundred-Day Memorial of Father
Day and night, whether awake or asleep, I dwell in remembrance.
Father’s pupils blazed like white-hot flame burning dry firewood.
Coming, going, going, coming—endless drift to and fro.
He took my right hand and kissed its back, his lips cold to the touch.
Childishly playful, mischievous, yet solemn all at once.
His beard, no longer coarse as it once was,
Brushed away the mark of his kiss upon my skin.
A faint unease stirs within my heart.
The nation’s birthday brims with joy and celebration.
Yet within the homeland of my ancestral name,
These hundred days blur wakefulness and slumber alike.
父亲、母亲: 辛丑年八月廿七日（星期日）
——父亲百日祭
白昼，夜晚，我醒着，我睡着。
父亲的眼睛仁，如硬柴的火焰，白炽。来去，去来，来去来。
父亲拉过我的右手，亲吻手背，冰冷。贪玩，调皮，又肃穆。
父亲用他已经不太坚硬的胡须，擦干净我手背上他的吻痕。我有点儿不舒服，是心。
祖国的生日，是喜庆的。我在姓氏的祖国，一百天，似乎醒，似乎睡。
***
Father and Mother: The Fifth Day of the Tenth Lunar Month, Year Gui Mao (Friday)
I lie awake, yet the girl says I am asleep
Well, then let me be one who cannot be roused,
Clutching the pipe mouthpiece my father held between his lips for half his life as I slumber
Upon the bean-green jade pebble, dark stains of old dry tobacco and the crimson tint left by Father’s lips bloom into patterns
Unfolding wide—the pipe mouthpiece stretches like a vast wilderness plain
I remain lost in sleep. The girl busies herself tending delicate porcelain wares
Visions and memories bleed into one realm—click-clack, click-clack, hooves of a herd of horses trotting home
So be it; I will plant myself upon this plain of the pipe mouthpiece
Waiting for wind, waiting for rain, waiting for heavy ripe ears on the branches.
The order of the seasons has fallen out of joint
I struggle to wake. The girl sings a lullaby in a loud, clear voice
Father has moved to his grave dwelling, and now he welcomes Mother to hers.
They slumber, they stir, and they slide the earth’s bolt shut behind them
Heap upon heap of dreadful dream shadows: Father dwells there,
Mother dwells there, my two elder sisters, grandfather and grandmother too
They snare the horse hooves bound for home. My home—I am left an orphan
父亲、母亲: 癸卯年十月初五（星期五）
我醒着，姑娘说我睡着了
好吧，那就做个叫不醒的人，手里攥着父亲噙了半生的烟锅嘴儿睡着
豆青色籽料上，老旱烟的黑、父亲嘴唇的红沁透的花儿
盛开——烟锅嘴儿如阔大的原
我还在睡。姑娘忙碌地打理精致的瓷器
幻视、记忆交混成一个场域——吧嗒吧嗒，吧嗒吧嗒，似马群回家的蹄声
那好，就把自己种在烟锅嘴儿的这片原上吧
等待风、等待雨、等待枝条上的穗儿沉甸甸。季节的次序有点儿乱
我在挣扎着醒来。姑娘高音唱着摇篮曲
父亲乔迁坟穴居住，父亲迎接母亲坟穴居住。他们睡着，他们醒着，他们插上了大地的门闩
可怕的梦影一堆一堆，父亲在里面，母亲在里面，两个姐姐在里面，还有祖父祖母
他们绊住了回家的马蹄。我的家——我的孤儿
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