There is no desert, no castle in the air
Worth your bending down to listen, incline your ear?
Li Yucong
Li Yucong, born in Yuyao in June 1971, lives in Hangzhou. He started writing circa 1990. His writings are widely published in magazines. His books include This Moment, That Moment, Ukiyo-e, Sand and Trees, Relativity of Mountains and Rivers, Illusions of Bonsai and Flowers, Return to Tomorrow. Winner of the Li-Du Poetry Award.
李郁葱，1971年6月出生于余姚，现居杭州。1990年前后开始创作，文字见于各类杂志，出版有诗集、散文集《此一时 彼一时》《浮世绘》《沙与树》《山水相对论》《盆景和花的幻术》《重返明天》等多部。曾获李杜诗歌奖等。
Translated by Ma Yongbo
Inclined Ear
There is no desert, no castle in the air
Worth your bending down to listen, incline your ear? There is none
Nothing more worthy for you to unloosen your cochlea
To receive, to speak, to bear witness to this silence
This vast silence, the uproar amid crowds
If you catch that sharp cry
It rises from what you have overlooked
Behind those faces lies tangled warbling
Listen, this faint tremor, your posture
Attuned to what has been abandoned, not what you
Abandoned: the rover lingering on the desolate Martian planet
Let us hear the silent order within sound
It is jolting, even if you turn a deaf ear
It is immense, even if you are tiny as an ant
What we hear cannot be kept:
Promises, lies, if that sound is engraved
倾耳听
并没有沙漠或者有空中楼阁
值得你弯腰去听，倾耳听？并没有
更多值得你放开自己的耳蜗
去接受，去述说，去见证这片沉默
这广袤的沉默，人群中的喧嚣
如果你听到尖锐的那一声
它来自于你所忽略的
那些脸庞的背后，有着缭乱地鸣啭
听吧，这微颤，你的姿态
专注于一种被抛弃了的，而不是你所
放弃：踟躇于荒凉星球的火星车
让我们听到声音中寂静的秩序
它是颠簸的，即使你置若罔闻
它是辽阔的，即使你小如蝼蚁
我们所听到的并不能挽留：
承诺、谎言，如果那声音镌刻
_______
The Night Boat
Have you ever known this experience, all things
Drift away in stillness —
The distant unseen, the sound that occasionally cleaves the water
Also splits the hush within the night
Where am I, where do I go
Whence come those sounds, to whom
Shall we speak? Most of the time
I stay merely on the bank, after a long walk
Watching the boat melt slowly into the vast grey
As if everything around is water
Forgetting I once made such a voyage
Yet it feels familiar, inside thick mist
A sailor’s sensation may surge all at once
Those alien lands stretch winding along
Fixed waterways: and I am but a passenger
Slipping now and then from delight to weariness
Unkempt as one adrift
A man wrapped in time, taking leave
Upon an unnamed riverbank
I wake just as day breaks, and say:
There have been such long, indescribable hours
夜航船
是否有过这样的经验，一切
都在平稳中流逝——
不能看到远方，偶尔破开水面的
声音，也破开了夜色中的岑寂
我在哪里，我去何方
那些声音从何而来，我们
要对谁诉说？大多数时候
我只是在岸边，在长久的散步之后
看到那船缓慢中融入苍茫
仿佛周边的一切都是水
忘记自己有过这样的航行
但似曾相识，在浓重的雾色里
突然会有船员般的感触
那些陌生之地，沿着固定的航道
逶迤：而我只是一个乘客
偶尔在旅程中从愉悦走向了乏味
不修边幅如同颠沛流离
被时间包裹了的人，告别在
一段无法命名的河岸上
天亮的时候我恰好醒来，说：
有过这样漫长却无法描述的时候
______
Academy of Classical Learning
Footprints of the vanished, lie where I cannot
See. Like insects fading into the grass
Those people, the grand conversers
Uttered words of statecraft and practical wisdom
From their streaming mouths
A sudden night rain swells the roar of waterfalls
Twin lotus blooms break open, disturbing the heron
Musing upon the dike
Flowing forth like water, their teachings
Woven into this landscape’s narrative —
The green peeled back by stone steps, summer’s
Vigorous fire: spreading, to quiet places beyond the hills
Footprints stay damp yet empty in an instant
Those who came, depart just as we do
Xie’s clogs are nowhere to be found, the ancient path
Trod again and again: through endless time, gnats and flies swarm
NOTE: Xie’s clogs: A kind of detachable-tooth wooden clog invented by Xie Lingyun, poet of the Southern Song Dynasty, for mountain trekking, a classic literary symbol for wandering among mountains.
书院
消失之人的足迹，在我无法
看见的地方。像是虫子消失于草丛
那些人，高谈阔论者
经世致用的言语，用滔滔之口说出
一夜骤雨加大了瀑布的喧嚣
并蒂莲绽放，打扰了堤坝上沉思的鹭鸟
水一样流淌出去，他们的学说
裹挟在这山水的叙事中——
那些被石阶剥开了的绿意，夏日
盎然之火：蔓延，到山外的僻静处
脚印潮湿但转瞬就空无
来过的人，如我们这般远去
谢公屐无处寻觅，古道
一再被踏足：万古悠悠，蚊蝇翔集
______________
