One cicada builds its own vast sea
Out of surging, endless waves of sound…
Tu Guowen
Tu Guowen is a senior education media professional. He is a member of the Chinese Writers Association and the China Association of Literary and Art Critics; Deputy Secretary-General of the Ecological Literature Branch of China Association for the Promotion of Ecological Civilization Research; Vice President of Zhejiang Writing Society; Director of Zhejiang Association of Literary and Art Critics; Director of Zhejiang Prose Society; Deputy Secretary-General of Zhejiang Children’s Reading Alliance; Mentor of the Distinguished Mentor Group of Zhejiang Juvenile Writers Association; and Vice Chairman of West Lake District Writers Association, Hangzhou. He currently serves as Executive Editor-in-Chief of a university journal. He has published 16 books in total, including poetry collections, essay collections, novella collections, literary criticism collections, full-length novels and educational readers. His works have appeared in more than 266 newspapers and periodicals, and have been selected into over one hundred anthologies such as China New Poetry Rankings, Chinese Regional Poetry Yearbook, New Jiangxi Poetry School Yearbook, and Grace of Jiangnan: Anthology of Poems from Hangzhou-Jiaxing-Huzhou in the 21st Century.
涂国文，资深教育媒体人，中国作家协会会员、中国文艺评论家协会会员、中国生态文明研究与促进会生态文学分会副秘书长、浙江省写作学会副会长、浙江省文艺评论家协会理事、浙江省散文学会理事、浙江少儿阅读联盟副秘书长、浙江省青少年作家协会名家导师团导师、杭州市西湖区作家协会副主席，现为某高校杂志社执行主编。著有诗集、随笔集、中篇小说集、文学评论集、长篇小说、教育读本等共16部。作品见于266余家报刊，入选《中国新诗排行榜》《汉语地域诗歌年鉴》《新江西诗派诗歌年鉴》《江南风度——21世纪杭嘉湖诗选》等逾百部选集。
Translated by Ma Yongbo
A Cicada’s Song
One cicada builds its own vast sea
Out of surging, endless waves of sound
Its spirit, boiled by the scorching sun, turns into lightning
Surpassing thresholds, mountain ridges and drifting clouds
To forge thunder high in the sky
Outside the window, it sheds its heavy soundbox and dogma
In a boat of quiet emptiness, it carries death and bones toward autumn
Its wooden oar stirs green leaves, broken shadows and time
With its wings for sails, it sails amid the storm of verbs
It empties its own vast sea
The only thing it cannot move is the bright moon above that sea
蝉鸣
一只蝉以汹涌不绝的声浪，制造自己的瀚海
被烈日煮沸的精魄，化身为闪电
顶飞阈值、峰峦和流云，在天空形成惊雷
在窗外，它蜕下沉重的琴箱和教义
以虚静之舟，向着秋天搬运死亡与骨头
它的木桨，划动绿叶、碎影和光阴
它以翅作帆，航行在动词的风暴里
它将自己的瀚海搬空
它唯一搬动不了的，是瀚海之上的那轮明月
____
Can I watch the snow backwards?
At first glance, I look down upon the snow
Crouching on rows of tiled roofs south of the Yangtze
Then I step backward into a cluster of plum blossoms before an ancient post station
Like a scholar of a past dynasty, entrusting my future to the lost wind and snow
Next, I retreat to a wooden gate in the Tang Dynasty
I brush off the chill all over my body, heat a pot of wine, and drink face to face with my shadow
When the cup is drained, I step back into a green mountain of the Wei-Jin era
Heavy snow falls, I stretch out on a couch and fall into deep sleep
Waking from wine at midnight, I go further back to the desolate seashore of the Qin Dynasty
Amid jagged reefs, by the pale snowlight, I hold and read a forbidden book
我可不可以这样倒退着看雪
第一眼，我俯瞰江南鳞次栉比的屋顶上
大雪匍匐的身姿
然后，我倒退进驿站前的一丛梅花
像一位前朝书生，将前程交给弥途的风雪
接着，我倒退进唐朝的一间柴扉
掸却满身的寒冷，烫壶热酒，与影子对饮
饮毕，我倒退进魏晋的一座青山中
大雪飘落，我横陈卧榻，酣然入眠
半夜酒醒，我倒退进秦朝荒僻的海滨
在乱礁中，就着雪光，捧读一册禁书
____
Encounter: At the Dental Clinic, Where Language Suffers
In the afternoon, at the West Branch of Hangzhou Stomatological Hospital
I submit myself to an hour of miniature torture —
This place where teeth are whitened, where language endures its suffering
First comes the oral exam. Before the CT scanner
My dental arch, winding like reefs in the gulf of speech
Reveals the phantom of a skull
For so long unable to utter the words deep in my heart
Those imprisoned languages erode the gums, spark inflammation
Growing plaque and stains upon the dental ridge
Then I gargle with disinfectant, to cut down the bacteria
Left when I rail against the world, a drape covers my face
And a shouting mouth emerges from an opening in the dark
Sickle-shaped instruments scrape, hook and chisel on the gumline
Eighteen martial arts skills whirl inside the mouth
Like an alchemist polishing words.
A dull ache and sharp sting. I taste faint blood seeping from my mouth corner
I know it comes from the stagnant blood of old wars waged with language
And a fresh wound inflicted upon the Chinese tongue
Piezoelectric ultrasonic scalers, magnetostrictive ultrasonic scalers
And air-driven ultrasonic scalers hum across the whole scaling ward
Another kind of cicada song of summer, the roar of language under renovation
Polishing. To dull language’s sensitivity and craving for justice
When scaling ends, the tooth surfaces turn smooth and clean
Henceforth I may speak glibly, calling a deer a horse
遇见：在口腔医院，这语言的受难所
下午，在杭州市口腔医院城西分院
我把自己投入整整一个小时的微型酷刑
一一这牙齿的洗白之地、语言的受难所
首先接受口腔检查。在CT机面前
我礁石般蜿蜒于语言海湾的齿床
露出骷髅的幻影
因为长久不能发出心底的声音
那些被封锁的语言腐蚀牙龈，生发炎症
在牙床上结出菌斑和色垢
接着用消毒液漱口，减少唾骂世界时
留下的细菌，之后被一块罩布蒙住脸庞
一张呐喊的大嘴，从黑暗的漏洞中显现
镰形器在牙床上剔、刮、勾、凿
十八般武艺在口腔中翻飞
如同炼金士对词语的打磨
酸胀刺痛。我闻到几丝血腥从嘴角溢出
我知道那源于昔年一场语言战争的淤血
以及一场对汉语的新的伤害
压电式超声洁牙机、磁致伸缩式洁牙机
和气动超声波洁牙机在整层洗牙区震颤
这夏日的另一种蝉鸣，语言装修的轰响
抛光。减少语言对于正义的敏感和趋附
洗牙结束，齿面变得光滑而洁净
从此后我可以红口白牙，指鹿为马
________________
