by Duo Duo, translated from the Chinese by Lucas Klein
AMSTERDAM’S RIVER
in the November nightfall city
there is only Amsterdam’s river
suddenly
the tangerines on my tree at home
shake in the autumn wind
I close the window, but no use
the river flows upstream, but no use
that sun inlaid with pearls, rising
no use
pigeons disperse like iron filings
and the streets with no boys suddenly seem so spacious
after autumn rain
the roof that’s crawling with snails
—my country
slowly floats by, on Amsterdam’s river
1989
阿姆斯特丹的河流
十一月入夜的城市
惟有阿姆斯特丹的河流
突然
我家树上的桔子
在秋风中晃动
我关上窗户，也没有用
河流倒流，也没有用
那镶满珍珠的太阳，升起来了
也没有用
鸽群像铁屑散落
没有男孩子的街道突然显得空阔
秋雨过后
那爬满蜗牛的屋顶
－－我的祖国
从阿姆斯特丹的河上，缓缓驶过……
1989
RESIDENTS
only when they drink beer in the depths of the sky do we kiss
when they sing, we turn out the lights
when we sleep, they use their silver-plated toenails
to walk into our dreams, when we’re waiting to wake
they’ve already formed a river
in timeless sleep
they shave, and we hear a violin
they row a boat, and the earth stops spinning
they stop rowing, they stop rowing
it’s impossible that we’ll ever wake
in sleepless time
they wave to us, we wave to children
when children are waving to children
stars wake from their distant hotel
all that know pain have woken
the beer that they’ve drunk has flown back to the sea
the children who walk on the sea
all earn their blessing: flow
flow, it’s only the yielding of the river
with tears that flow in secret, we have formed a river
1989
居民
他们在天空深处喝啤酒时，我们才接吻
他们歌唱时，我们熄灯
我们入睡时，他们用镀银的脚指甲
走进我们的梦，我们等待梦醒时
他们早已组成了河流
在没有时间的睡眠里
他们刮脸，我们就听到提琴声
他们划桨，地球就停转
他们不划，他们不划
我们就没有醒来的可能
在没有睡眠的时间里
他们向我们招手，我们向孩子招手
孩子们向孩子们招手时
星星们从一所遥远的旅馆中醒来了
一切会痛苦的都醒来了
他们喝过的啤酒，早已流回大海
那些在海面上行走的孩子
全都受到他们的祝福：流动
流动，也只是河流的屈从
用偷偷流出的眼泪，我们组成了河流……
1989
Duo Duo (author), penname of Li Shizheng, b. 1951, is one of China’s most influential poets. He began writing poetry during the Cultural Revolution as a sent-down youth, won the Jintian Poetry Prize in 1988, and left China on June 4, 1989, after having witnessed the beginnings of the massacre the night before. He lived abroad until 2004, when he returned to China to become a professor of creative writing at Hainan University. Now retired, he lives in Beijing. His most recent publications in English are The Boy Who Catches Wasps (Zephyr Press, 2002), translated by Gregory B. Lee, and Snow Plain: Selected Stories (Zephyr, 2010), translated by John Crespi. Duo Duo’s Words as Grain: New & Selected Poems, translated by Lucas Klein, is forthcoming from the Margellos World Republic of Letters series of Yale University Press.
Lucas Klein (translator) is a father, writer, and translator, as well as assistant professor in the School of Chinese at the University of Hong Kong. His translation Notes on the Mosquito: Selected Poems of Xi Chuan (New Directions) won the 2013 Lucien Stryk Prize, and his scholarship and criticism has appeared in Comparative Literature Studies, LARB, Jacket, CLEAR, PMLA, and other venues. Other publications include October Dedications, his translations of the poetry of Mang Ke (Zephyr Press and Chinese University Press, 2018), and contributions to Li Shangyin (New York Review Books, 2018), as well as the monograph The Organization of Distance: Poetry, Translation, Chineseness (Brill, 2018). His translations of the poetry of Duo Duo, forthcoming from Yale University Press, recently won a PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant. (Photograph of Lucas by Zhai Yongming.)