Disintegration 解體

by Liu Wai Tong, translated from the Chinese by Audrey Heijns

Translator’s note: Liu connects with Xi Xi’s work in various places in the poem. It starts with the title that is named after a short story by Xi Xi written from the perspective of a cancer patient: the protagonist recounts her own death experience and looks back on her life from her hospital bed. From the same short story collection is “White-haired Ah Ngo” 白髮阿娥 which is a series of eight stories about Ah Ngo’s life since the 1980s. The line “we look up at the sky and shake our heads” is adapted from the first chapter of the novel My City 我城. Finally, 像是笨蛋 is homonym for the title of her book 象是笨蛋 but which is unfortunately lost in translation.

DISINTEGRATION

Twenty-two years ago
you bade farewell to an old friend the way
you describe a snowman melting in the sun
today cheeky as you are
it ought to be soft ice-cream
melting in a huge yet tiny baby hand and
there should be one or countless hands that are even bigger
belonging to those who disintegrated earlier
old friends, fathers, and white-haired Ah Ngos
wiping you gently away
like white flower oil on the corner of a handkerchief
minute, quietly sending the fragrance into the entire space

yes, it’s the smell that we are familiar with when we look up at the sky
and shake our heads
it’s like fools, like angels
it’s like refusing to say goodbye, it’s like following a rhyme, marking a rhythm
download the ions woven into a breeze one by one in our own time

Farewell to Xi Xi, 26-27 December 2022

解體

二十二年前
你送別一位老友的方式
是書寫他像雪人融化在陽光中的過程
今天，頑皮如你
應該是霜淇淋
融化在一隻巨大、但是嬰孩的手上
而還應該有一隻、無數隻更大的手
屬於先解體的
老友、父親、白髮阿娥⋯⋯
輕輕把你拭下來
像手巾仔一角的白花油
細微、素淨地把香氣送進整個空間

是的，是我們熟悉的氣味啊，我們向著天空
搖我們的頭
像是笨蛋，像是天使
像是拒絕告別，像是隨韻律、打拍子
把編織到清風裡的離子一粒粒地下載到自己
的時間裡

2022.12.26.-27.送別西西

Published: Wednesday 8 March 2023

[RETURN TO XI XI]

Liu Wai Tong 廖偉棠 (poet) is a Hong Kong poet, writer and photographer. He has received many literary awards, including the Hong Kong Biennial Award for Literature, the Taiwan Times Literature Award, the United Daily News Literature Award and the 2012 Hong Kong Art Development Award for Best Literary Artist. He now resides in Taiwan and is Visiting Associate Professor at the Taipei National University of the Arts. Among his more than a dozen poetry collections are Eight Inches of Snow (八尺雪意), Half a Notebook of Ghost Talk (半簿鬼語), and Cherry and Vajra (櫻桃與金剛). He has also published the short story collection War Game in 18 Alleys (十八條小巷的戰爭遊戲), as well as several volumes of essays, criticism, and photography.

Audrey Heijns (translator) is a researcher, translator, and lecturer based in Hong Kong. She translates Chinese literature in Dutch and English, and is the editor of the online database Verretaal.