The river lies smooth as a mirror, I sit beside the flower bed
A few fallen leaves float on the current
A faint tremor ripples outward
Spreading thin rings across the water.
Born in Beijing and raised in Wuxi, Wang Xuexin is a member of the Chinese Writers Association and director of the Chinese Poetry Society. He attended the 10th National Youth Poetry Conference. He has won numerous literary awards, including the Long Poem Prize of Poetry Monthly, the October Literature Prize, the Zhongshan Literature Prize, the 3rd Poetry Prize of The Writer, the Star Poetry Prize, the Purple Mountain Literature Award and the 5th China Long Poem Award. He has also received honors from Yangtze River Poetry Journal, Poetry Monthly and Selected Poems. His collections Empty Mirror and Blue Light were named among the Top Ten Poetry Collections by China Poetry Network. Some of his poems have been translated and published overseas. To date, he has brought out fifteen poetry collections, namely Two Lips, Here and There, Grassland in the Sky, Flying Dust, Transition, Nursing Home, Within the Realm of Light, and others.
王学芯，出生在北京，长在无锡。中国作家协会会员，中国诗歌学会理事。参加第十届青春诗会。获《诗刊》长诗奖、十月文学奖、锺山文学奖、《作家》第三届诗歌奖、《星星》诗歌奖、紫金山文学奖、中国第五届长诗奖，获《扬子江诗刊》《诗歌月刊》《诗选刊》等诗歌奖，《空镜子》《蓝光》获中国诗歌网十佳诗集奖。部分诗歌译介国外。出版《双唇》《这里那里》《天上的草原》《飞尘》《迁变》《老人院》《光域里》等15部诗集。
Translated by Ma Yongbo
Riverside
New camphor trees stand exactly
Where the old ones once grew, stretching lush and strong
Their shadows drift across the delicate water’s surface
A faint ripple stirs sunset bleeds
Peach pink and pale amber
Split evenly in half
A passenger jet streaks overhead
A single balloon unfurls a sense of vast boundless space
A wider bank of clouds drifts along a slow arc
One long upward gaze
One fleeting glance
The glow fades away
And dusk settles deep
Figures drift into my line of sight
An elderly woman of seventy or eighty hobbling with a cane
A woman in her fifties her knees heavy with unspoken unease
A grey-haired man with stubborn resolve carved into his face
A stooped old man as if fresh from surgery
All forms blurred fraught with uncertainty
Their backgrounds soft and indistinct
No single label can sum up each soul’s inner state
Every person’s private timeline floats scattered across the sky
The river lies smooth as a mirror, I sit beside the flower bed
A few fallen leaves float on the current
A faint tremor ripples outward
Spreading thin rings across the water.
河边
新的香樟树
正是老香樟的位置 茁壮伸展
影子漂在细致水面上
微弱一阵荡漾 夕阳的
桃红色与淡黄色
各占一半
一架客机飞过
一只气球显现出宏伟广阔
一片更大的云彩 打着弧线移动
一种长时间的仰视
一次短暂一瞥
光景过去
天暗了
看过去的所见之人
一个七八十岁老太太拄着一根拐杖行走
一个五十多岁女士膝盖疑虑重重
一个短发老头一脸不屈不挠
一个佝偻老头像刚手术
形态与不确定
背景模糊
不可归类的反应
各人的时间表都在天空飘着
河面如镜 坐的一个地方 花坛边
几片叶子漂在水面上
一阵轻微荡漾
涟漪扩散
***
Walking Past
Dusk has fallen
The air hangs faintly amber
Beyond this amber haze, my vision stands clearer still
Amid all circumstance, green trees thrive in full bloom
Two versions of myself examine my own inner mind
All I see, all I ponder
Pale grey clouds slowly deepen
Into heavy, saturated masses
A sulphuric tang drifts through the air
Like ten tons of parched, scorched atmospheric weight
Clogging my throat, pressing hard
Around my nostrils
A man nearing sixty-seven or eight, worn with age in every fibre of his being
Will press the frail rear of his skull, his pituitary
Against glowing lamplights
Dragging this slanted twilight
Into the night
The residential compound, thick with residents, ebbs and flows, ebbs and flows
Small stray dogs linger casually at passersby’s feet
Tagging along with leftover fragments of conversation
Lingual, labial, dental sounds
Murmurs and tones of quiet pride well up within guttural utterances
Drifting past the pavilion, past the woodline
And a waterside pavilion built to shelter from wind and rain
Countless swirling eddies of speech hang suspended in the air
Like loose woven mesh sacks
Dripping softly, drop by drop
散步途经
已是黄昏
空气有些昏黄
比昏黄更清晰的视界
境况中的绿树全部欣欣向荣
双重的自我审视自我心理
看到的 想到的
淡灰色的云 变成了
浓色的云
另一种硫磺色味道
像是一团十吨重的焦枯气压
堵塞在喉咙口 压在
鼻子附近
一个六十七八岁的全体衰老之人
将要使用虚弱的后脑垂体
碰碰触触亮起的灯光
把倾斜的日暮
带进夜晚
充满居民的小区聚聚散散聚聚
许多无意间的脚边小狗
伴着剩余话题
舌音 唇音 齿音
在喉音里发出咕哝声荣耀声
越过亭子 越过林边和一处风雨水榭
空气中一个个述及的漩涡
如一只只网袋
淅淅沥沥
***
Step Back
Everyone understands
What time truly means
The flowing present slips backward in this instant
I turn away, and the building suddenly looms far taller
That window where I lived forty years of my life
Hangs suspended midair
Its streaks of light fading out
The glass glows a solid shade of blue
Several elevators inside the building shuttle up and down
Thousands of doors, thousands of keys, passed back and forth time after time
Opening, shutting, sharp clicking sounds
Like stamped effective dates
History and experience
Each swirl apart on their own
I stare at the moon visible in broad daylight
The moon drifts across the sky, pale and flecked grey-white
Brushed by a faint breeze. A single bird
Flies over the street
This whole day, or just the morning,
Or a few fleeting minutes, I wipe my shoes
With a single leaf, its green worn dark against the leather
A beam of sunlight stays soft and vividly bright.
The foot I lift seems to carry a beating heart,
Thumping gently inside each toe.
The road stretching backward
Keeps shifting its place
后退
人人明白
时间意味着什么
流动的现在 此刻后退
背转身去一座大楼倏地高了许多
那扇度过自己四十年的窗户
悬在半空中
光痕隐没
玻璃一片蔚蓝
大楼内几部电梯 上上下下
几千扇门几千把钥匙一次次递来递去
开了关了 啪嗒响声
类似生效的日期
历史与过程
分别回旋
盯着白昼里月亮
月亮进入天空露出斑白之色
被微风吹拂 一只鸟
飞过街道
这一天或上午
或几分钟 用一片树叶
擦擦自己的鞋子 绿色的擦到了黑
太阳一束光 保持湿润明亮
提起的脚 似乎拥有心脏
在脚趾上平缓跳动
后退的一条路
移动着地方
____________________
Read: My Vast Hometown – Poetry from China
