The Poets light but Lamps
Emily Dickinson
The Poets light but Lamps—
Themselves—go out—
The Wicks they stimulate—
If vital Light
Inhere as do the Suns—
Each Age a Lens
Disseminating their
Circumference—
The poets light but lamps themselves go out. The first line of Dickinson is modest, yet at such a modern time it seems to be so untimely.
When the 15 years old country boy Hai Zi adimitted by the Law School in Peking University at the age of 15, was his earlier poetic creation triggered by the vast contrast of life between the elite school in capital city and his village in a quite corner of Anhui province? Was the teaching post at China University of Political Science and Law at the age of 19 isolated him from the society? Was the burden of being considered at a major contemporary poets, or indeed he chose to be a sacrifice of agricultural culture past, by laying himself on the railroad crossing Shan Huai Huan, the pass between mountain and ocean, on his 25 years birthday?
荒凉的山岗上站着四姐妹
所有的风只向他们吹
所有的日子都为他们破碎
On the wild hillock stand four sisters
All winds only blow to them
All days dedicate to breaking for them
Isn’t it as compelling as the opening line of Shakespeare’s Three Witches?
WHEN shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
雷电轰轰雨蒙蒙，
何日姐妹再相逢？
Was it his declaration of love to his goddesses?
这时正当月光普照大地
我们各自领着
尼罗河、巴比伦或黄河
的孩子
在河流两岸
在群蜂飞舞的岛屿或平原
洗了手准备吃饭
By now the moonlight illuminated every corner of the land
We got respectively
The children of the Nile River’s, the Babylon’s or he Yellow River’s on the bands
On the islands or the plains with dancing bees
Washed hands and ready for diner
When Hai Zi chanted again and again the grain fields, the moon, the sky, was it a tribute to his village childhood, or hopeless nostalgia for a forever gone homeland lost?
黑夜从大地上升起
遮住了光明的天空
丰收后荒凉的大地
黑夜从你内部上升
The night rising form the vast land
Obscured the bright sky
The wild land after harvest
The night is rising from the interior of you
Was it his prediction to his death, or a desperate call out to a divine inspiration? Was the consumption of his own body and life caused by the idealistic enlightenment, or did he consider the genesis of a butterfly another interpretation of poetry?
In springtime of 1989, after written down his last poem, Springtime, Ten Haizis, 25 years old Haizi set off to Shan Hai Guan with a copy of Bible, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, Thor Heyerdahl’s The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas and a collection of Joseph Conrad.
Four years later only when I left the compound I grew and went to college did I read Hai Zi the first time, and through Hai Zi I learnt about Thor Heyerdahl and his expedition of the Kon-Tiki. Many years later when I was cooking in the kitchen, the radio broadcasted the death of Heyerdahl, Hai Zi reemerged as the remembrance of Proust’s tea and madeleine.
春天,十個海子
春天, 十個海子全都復活
在光明的景色中
嘲笑這一野蠻而悲傷的海子
你這麼長久地沉睡究竟是為了什麼?
春天, 十個海子低低地怒吼
圍著你和我跳舞、唱歌
扯亂你的黑頭發, 騎上你飛奔而去, 塵土飛揚
你被劈開的疼痛在大地彌漫
在春天, 野蠻而復仇的海子
就剩下這一個, 最後一個
這一個黑夜的孩子, 沉浸於冬天, 傾心死亡
不能自拔, 熱愛著空虛而寒冷的鄉村
那裏的穀物高高堆起, 遮住了窗子
它們一半用於一家六口人的嘴, 吃和胃
一半用於農業, 他們自己繁殖
大風從東吹到西, 從北刮到南, 無視黑夜和黎明
你所說的曙光究竟是什麼意思
SPRINGTIME, TEN HAIZIS
Springtime, and ten Haizis come back to life completely
In the brilliant scenery
Mocking this savage and mournful Haizi
You slept so long and so deeply, what was it for?
Springtime, and ten Haizis are quietly howling
Dancing in a circle around you and me, singing
Ruffling your black hair, you mount and fly like the wind, raising swirls of dust
Your pain that was split open is flooding the land
In the springtime, a savage and vengeful Haizi
Only this one is left, this very last one
This is the black night’s child, steeped in winter, dedicated to death
You can’t free yourself, loving this chill and hollow village
The grains there are mounded high, blocking the windows
Half of it goes to a family of six, to fill mouths and stomachs
Half will go to farming, and they themselves will multiply
A great wind blows from east to west, from north to south, seeing neither darkness nor dawn
When you talked about summer light, what did you really mean?
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