Yes. This is Hadahushao Slopes
It is roughly seven o’clock in the morning
A seed is in flight
The spiral atop its head blurs anxiously in sight
Barbed seed heads, shaped just as they ought to be
Cling to human bodies as they intend…
Lin Xue
Lin Xue took part in the 8th Youth Poetry Conference sponsored by the Poetry magazine in 1988. She won the New Century National Top Ten Young Female Poets Award presented by Poetry magazine in 2006, and her poetry collection Sunflowers on the Earth received the 4th Lu Xun Literature Prize. She has published several poetry collections including Pale Blue Stars, Blue Infatuation, Beyond Poetry and Poems by Lin Xue. Her other works include the essay collection Flames Beneath Deep Water and the poetry appreciation volume I Still Prefer Love. Her honours also cover the Annual Poet Award from Stars Poetry Magazine, China Publishing Group Award, the title of One of China’s Most Influential Poets of the Century, and Top Ten Contemporary Poets Award. In March 2018, she was assigned to work in Baiyinchangyingzi Village, Hadahushao Town, Fuxin Mongolian Autonomous County, a rural community.
林雪，1988年参加诗刊社第8届青春诗会。2006年获诗刊新世纪全国十佳青年女诗人奖，诗集《大地葵花》获第四届鲁迅文学奖。出版诗集《淡蓝色的星》《蓝色钟情》《在诗歌那边》《林雪的诗》等数种。随笔集《深水下的火焰》、诗歌鉴赏集《我还是喜欢爱情》等。作品获《星星》年度诗人奖、中国出版集团奖、中国百年最具影响力诗人、当代诗人十佳奖等。2018年3月选派到乡村阜新蒙古族自治县哈达户稍镇白音昌营子村工作。
Translated by Ma Yongbo
Hadahushao Slopes
Yes. This is Hadahushao Slopes
It is roughly seven o’clock in the morning
A seed is in flight
The spiral atop its head blurs anxiously in sight
Barbed seed heads, shaped just as they ought to be
Cling to human bodies as they intend
Sunlight rests over the fields. The wind
Blows a little stronger than forecast. Yes, this is
The one who came out to plough at dawn
These are the sheep herded onto the slopes
They walk against the wind, with every leaf they eat
They carry away a seed
This is the simple recompense known to the shepherd
This is the sun rising beyond the groves of
Nine-Head Mountain. Since the houses stand low
The sun drops almost vertically each day
Beneath the firmament, mountains sink into deep blue every day
Night falls, profound as sea
Gulls cry out gradually, as if inside a film
This is the beach where I step… Yes, I just
Saw a bird carry off a seed in its beak
This is a lesson in aviation, warfare, and vast range
Yes, this is what we have never known
The sociology of insects, wind and rain
These are all things testable in life
And the years that flow
Between me — a walking
Generator synthesizing words
哈达户稍坡地
是的。这就是哈达户稍坡地
现在大概是早上7点
一颗种子在飞翔
这就是它头上的螺旋线在视线里焦虚
有勾刺的草籽穗形物如其所愿
粘结在人们身上
阳光停留在田野上。风力
比预报的略大。是的，这就是
早上那个去耕种的人
这就是被放牧到坡地的羊群
它们逆风而行，每吃掉一片叶子
就会带走一粒种子
这是牧羊人所知的简单回报
这是早上越过九头山树丛
而升起的太阳。因为民居低矮
太阳每天都垂直降落
天幕下每天都群山幽蓝
入夜深邃似海
海鸥渐渐像在电影里一样尖叫
这是我移步的海滩……是的，我刚刚
看见一只鸟衔走的一颗种子
这是航空和军事，以及伟大射程的功课
是的，这是我们不曾知道的
昆虫、风、雨的社会学
这就是生活中可以检验的一切
与我——一个走动着的
文字综合发生器之间
流逝的岁月
***
Cuckoo Once Again
Spring is like a courier on a motorbike
Arriving swift and casual
Then summer will move
Slow as an old postal carriage
Autumn a freight depot where parcels stall undelivered
Winter — winter shall be a sketchbook in black and white
Its lines woodcutting humanity’s petition laid before God
Crops everywhere will ripen ahead of time
Desolation after harvest stretches boundless
The sky bears a cover of deep cerulean blue
Farmers linger at ease, like Houji travelling incognito
Passersby feel familiar, as a face long apart
Scenes dreamed long ago will return one by one
Like a sentence left half-spoken years before
Like an unfinished letter from home
Stranded in a strange land
On silent nights, I often have the illusion that all things stand ready
Lacking only your cuckoo call. From April to October
The world across three seasons
Walking, speaking, reading, writing
That which breeds and torments in turn
I meet all of it with the hush of instant recognition
NOTE: Houji is the legendary Chinese God of Agriculture and the primal ancestor of the Zhou people. In the age of Yao and Shun, he served as the minister of farming. He taught humanity to sow grains, identify fertile soil and establish crop cultivation, freeing people from hunger. His name literally means “Lord of Millet”.
又见布谷
春天像骑摩托车的快递员
来的迅速而轻率
尔后的夏天将像
老邮政马车一样慢腾腾
秋天则是一家寄品滞发的货站
冬天——冬天将是黑白写生簿
用线条木刻出人间给上帝的诉状
遍地庄稼将提前成熟
收割后的荒凉也将一望无际
天空将有一本湛蓝的封面
农人也将悠闲如微服的后稷
路人将似曾相识像一个久别的人
梦见过的景色将一一重现
如多年前那句说了一半的话
如在原籍有一封没写完的信
留在他乡
在静默之夜，我总有万事俱备的错觉
只欠你一声布谷。从 4 月到 10 月
三个季节的人间
走路、说话、读书、写字
那互相生发又互为折磨的东西
我都有一见如故的匆促
***
Worldly Things
Stillness is a little larger than aimlessness
The everyday is a little larger than idleness
Is there more righteousness like ordinariness!
Or more ordinariness like righteousness?
She tries to mark the good things (always late in coming)
To trace signs for misfortune (which always finds shortcuts)
The finest old haunts and new destinations
Are places where you may watch the wind chase dew across grass
Where branches loosen their own joints
From a perspective ten thousand meters overhead
Where traps lie, there also lies shelter from the wind
This is the last worldly affair of life
“Though he is old, and has wandered many years.”
What great fortune, yet she does not know it still
Only pointing toward the sun and saying look
See its careless radiance
世事
安静略大于漫无目的
日常略大于无所事事
是平凡一样的正当多些
还是正当一样的平凡更多？
她试图标注出好事（总是迟来）
为厄运画出记号（总有捷径）
最棒的老地方和新去处
是能看到风放逐草地上的露水
树枝抖松自己的关节之地
从头上的一万米的视角
哪里有陷阱，哪里就是避风港
这已是人生最后一件世事
“尽管他已老迈，也曾漫游多年”
多么幸运，而她却仍不自知
只顾指着太阳说看哪
看它那漫不经心的光辉
***
Street Sweeper
Against the rolling streets of the small town
The street sweeper is passive
Compared to the town postman
He is easier to appraise
Than the green uniform and lightweight raincoat
On his face lies twice the cheer of demotion followed by promotion
Beside a worn nag that seems to have won a literary prize
He is humbler than the electric scooter, lonelier than the embankment,
More aimless than autumn winds, floating clouds and checkpoints
He tactfully skirts the military restricted zone
Pretending to watch the hot-air balloon glide
Above barges dredging river silt
He scarcely cares how much romance
The drifting anchor dredges up
To restore one plot of time
How many pasts proliferate from scars
Set against the dignified, the street sweeper
Possesses a scrupulous ordinariness
The broom shifts, smoothing the air
Twisting the air. The extra limbs upon him
Resemble nameless insects harbouring resentment
Against the city of subsistence churned out
By assembly lines
Against filth that outstrips cleansing
Against a street that is greater than himself
扫街人
相对于小镇起伏的街道
扫街人是被动的
相对于小镇邮递员
他比绿制服和轻便雨衣
更容易估值
他脸上有两倍于贬黜又擢升的喜庆
相对于像得了文学奖的驽马
他比电瓶车卑微，比堤坝孤立
比秋风、浮云和关卡
更漫无目标
他知趣地绕过军事禁区
假装看挖河泥驳船上
掠过的热气球
他似乎并不关心铁锚飘荡
捞出多少浪漫
才还原出岁月一个情节
多少往事从疤痕中增生
相对于高贵者，扫街人
有一丝不苟的平庸
苕帚移动，抹平了空气
扭弯了空气。他身上
多出的腿脚
像无名昆虫暗含怨意
相对于流水生产线
运转出的温饱之都
相对于污浊大于打扫
相对一条街大于他本身
***
Trance: The Aging Pushkin
She once met adolescent Goethe
In a penniless small town
Encountered aging Pushkin
On a busy city street
On muddy roads in rain
She chased a heavy-set man
In a dark wool overcoat
His back like Neruda
In a slow train carriage
She brushed past Shelley
Among a gang of shirtless convicts digging trenches
She recognized Brodsky
He takes shape as a dark horse of the fields
Or a dark horse in the bustle of town
Breaking into the crowd to seek his rider
But they said she lied
Said she could never have seen them
For groves do not grow railway tracks
Nor does the sky bow low for fireworks
They said she had swallowed too much salted sunlight
And thus was trapped in absurd waking dreams
So young Werther returned once more to the tunnel
Yet not the tunnel they knew
That tunnel held her and Hrabal
The doctor helped her hide Russia and monuments
Down in the ditch
And stowed away a little Jesus there as well
Years later, on some night
When she comes back to this old place
Under the stars she remains hopelessly possessed
Together with them she will behold
Root-shoots and miracles
And marvel once again
At those two famous forms of eternity
恍惚：老去的普希金
她曾在一文不名的小镇
邂逅过青春期的歌德
在闹市街头遇到过
老去的普希金
在雨天泥泞的道路
追撵过一个穿深色厚呢子外套
背影像聂鲁达的胖子
在一列慢车车厢里
与雪莱擦肩而过
在一队光着上身挖地沟的囚犯中
认出过布罗茨基
他化身为田野的黑马
或闹市里的黑马
闯到人群中寻找骑手
但他们说她撒谎
说她不可能看到他们
因为树丛不生长铁轨
天穹也不肯为烟火低垂
他们说她吃多了含盐的阳光
才有荒唐的白日梦
于是少年维特又一次回到隧道
但那不是他们所知的那个
那隧道住着她和赫拉巴尔！
博士帮她把俄罗斯和纪念碑
都藏在沟渠
同时也藏起一个小耶稣
多年后在某个夜晚
当她旧地重回
星空下的她仍然不可救药
她将和他们一同看到
根芽和神迹
并对那著名的两种永恒
再一次发出惊叹
***
North of the Northern Trunk Line
Four tram tracks loop round the mountain town
She has a strong, capacious stomach!
Every day she swallows light, swallows wind
Decent, reserved peasant women board at suburban stops
Late 1970s schoolteachers, stern in bearing
Travelers mixed with hooligans and drifters
Villagers gather grapes and honey at either end of the north-south trunk road
New workers alight in the new town
How I love those girls riding backwards toward the terminus
They laugh and grip the handrails to steady themselves
The distant rails seem to converge
Much like their pure legs, accustomed to walking pigeon-toed
Back then they were all virgins
Yet ten years on, some among them
Were laid bare in the tram’s shadow, for poverty’s sake
I love those poets whose work appeared in mimeographed journals
Love the petty proletarian streak in the quiet chalkboard scribes
Now, how much stricken Asian air do you behold!
You are resold in capital’s hands
An incline on the trunk line, a metaphor for a city
When the evening star climbs higher to illuminate humiliation
Climb higher still! That imperial decadence
More of it! That sorrow like the setting sun
As though every passerby once was your fate
As though your life once bloomed everywhere upon others
北干线以北
四条电车路轨围绕着山城打转
她有健壮的大胃！
她每天吞进光线、吞进风
正派而拘谨的农妇从郊区站上车
七十年代末的中学教师气质严肃
旅客中夹杂着流氓、混混
村民在南北干线两端收葡萄和蜂蜜
在新城下车的是新兴的工人阶级
我多爱那些倒坐着去向终点的女孩子们
她们嘻嘻哈哈拉住手环让自己站稳
远处的铁轨似乎要并在一起
多像她们纯洁的双腿走路习惯了内八字
那时她们还都是处女
而10年后她们之中有的人
因为贫穷而敞开在电车的阴影里
我爱那些作品发表在油印杂志上的诗人
爱那沉默的黑板报写手身上的小普罗趣味
如今，你看见多少亚洲落难的气息
你在资本手中转卖
一个干线的坡道与一个城市的隐喻
当黄昏星为照亮屈辱升得更高
请升得再高些！那帝国一样的颓废
再多些！那斜阳一样的忧伤
仿佛路过的每个人都曾是你的命运
又仿佛你的人生曾到处开放在别人身上
_________________
