Crossing the Lingding Channel*
The murky waters are turbulent and never at rest.
Within them, must run a thread
of the troubled stream that flows through my hometown,
after its ten-thousand-mile journey to get here.
No matter where there are crowds, there is always one
prepared to take up the burden of the lonely.
There must also be one bent to the ground,
spreadeagled on his back, for the crowd to walk over him,
to bear witness to the darkness.
I have come to this place,
having left my desk, sleepless, in a state of unrest,
and whatever I write, it is merely to confirm,
over and over again, the predicament of the form –
that I am caught up in what can be seen
by the blind and in what the deaf can hear.
The waters I am capable of touching, and the waters
of the imagination, are weeping
and are wanting to greet one another.
Across the delicate gulf between the two,
the bridge over the channel is nearing completion.
When the sea breezes swirl around the cables
of the vast suspension bridge,
the white surf advances beneath it in rows
as if only the ocean had fathomed what we truly love.
In the name of this lonely place, seize hold
of that sapphire-blue art, its timeless break with the world.
*This poem shares its title with a famous poem by Wen Tianxiang (1236-1283) from the Song dynasty. He used his poem to voice his loyalty to the Song dynasty and the Han nationality. ‘Lingding’ means ‘lonely’.
过伶仃洋 / Crossing the Lingding Channel
浑浊的海水动荡难眠
其中必有一缕
是我家乡不安的小溪
万里跋涉而至
无论何处人群，必有人
来担负这伶仃之名
也必有人俯身
仰面等着众人踩过
看见那黑暗—
我来到这里
我的书桌动荡难眠
不管写下什么，都不过是在
形式的困境中反复确认
此生深陷于盲者之所视
聋者之所闻
我触摸到的水，想象中的
水 呜咽着相互问候
在这两者微妙的缝隙里
跨海大桥正接近完工
当海风顺着巨大的
悬索盘旋而上
白浪一排排涌来，仿佛只有
大海猜中了我们真正偏爱的
正是以这伶仃之名捕获
与世界永恒决裂的湛蓝技艺
Late Night Drive from Panyu to Zhuhai
In this wilderness, my car’s headlights create the darkness
by which I am surrounded.
Ambushed by all the eyes out there,
I am
isolated
and I am the one observed.
Darkness, nothing but a veil. Yet the darkness is captivating.
I grew up in a quite different language,
in a tunnel connected
only by solitary chains of chilly words
in a prolonged silence.
I try to hold two lives in balance
and keep four black wheels moving at a steady pace.
All the while, flying midges colliding with the windscreen –
one by one they come, not in a swarm:
only isolated things are worth remembering.
But how many dances in the darkness,
and how much weeping,
is never properly inscribed within us?
The music on the car radio is turned down low,
close to nothing –
my body, close to being abandoned by old age
in the wilderness,
is now rising to its feet
among the young birch trees I once described
beside the waters of a stream.
And observing the other me – sitting
in the driver’s seat, lit as bright as daylight,
and fading into the distance,
becoming one with a deeper darkness at the far edge of rain.
深夜驾车自番禺去珠海 / Late Night Drive from Panyu to Zhuhai
车灯创造了旷野的黑暗
我被埋伏在
那里的一切眼睛所看见
我
孤立
被看见
黑暗只是掩体。 但黑暗令人着迷
我在另一种语言中长大
在一个个冰冷的词连接
而成的隧洞中
寂静何其悠长
我保持着两个身体的均衡
和四个黑色轮毂的匀速
飞蠓不断扑灭在车玻璃上
他们是一个个而非
一群。 只有孤立的事物才值得记下
但多少黑暗中的起舞
哭泣
并未被我们记下
车载音乐被拧到最低
接近消失—
我因衰老而丢掉的身体在
旷野
在那些我描述过的年轻桦树上
在小河水中
正站起身来
看着另一个我坐在
亮如白昼的驾驶舱里
渐行渐远
成为雨水尽头更深黑暗的一部分
Night Arrival on Hengqin Island*
The ocean stores no more
than does the point of a needle. What is important
is whose hand does the digging.
How much longer will it last? From remote space,
the sea still resembles a famine-time of thought,
yet Hengqin Island is a compressed pinprick of desire.
The poets are successful in losing themselves
in the labyrinth of needle points.
As last year, huge trees and luxuriant blooms:
yet today, the rainbow’s torn to shreds. All’s change,
always at exactly the right moment.
The island's residents are of diverse origins.
Along streets and lanes, five doors and ten family names
display the power of blended bloodlines.
Although their dialect is difficult to understand,
beneath their tongues lie the voices of ancient times.
Beside the road, Buddhist pines and weeping figs,
each one beautifully tended.
A dazzling array of door plates, the hormones of noise
and colour, mysteriously, yet evenly, divided
among old men taking a walk, women and children.
This island – the Reclining Zither. Macau across the water.
When the ocean’s frenzied assault on the island
can no longer be sustained, there will be
hands stretched out from the point of the needle
to play the zither, so that even nightfall never forgets
a man merely gliding silently over its surface.
*’Hengqin’ means ‘reclining zither’, an allusion to the shape of the island itself.
夜登横琴岛 / Night Arrival on Hengqin Island
大海所藏并不比一根针尖的
所藏更多。 是怎样一只手
在其中挖掘—
他还要挖掘多久？ 从太空
俯瞰，大海仍呈思想的大饥荒色
横琴岛却被压缩为欲望的针尖
诗人们持续走失于
针尖的迷宫之内
去年巨树繁花相似，今日霓虹
四分五裂。 一切变化
总是恰在好处—
岛上的人居复杂
街衢五门十姓
散着血缘的混杂之力。 虽是
方言难懂，舌尖下却自有
那绵延的古音未绝
路边的罗汉松、小叶榕
得到了美妙的修剪
门牌琳琅，声色的荷尔蒙神秘均分
于闲步的老人，妇女和儿童之间
岛曰横琴，澳门隔岸
当大海对一座岛疯狂的磨损再也
继续不下去了
这针尖中自有一双手伸出来
把这张琴弹得连夜色也忘不了
一个仅仅从它皮肤上无声滑过的人
___________
Chen Xianfa is a poet, essayist and journalist born in Anhui Province, China, where
he still lives. He has published four books of poems: Death in the Spring (1994), Past
Life (2005), Engraving the Tombstone (2011) and Poems in Nines (2018) which was
awarded the Lu Xun Literature Prize.
Martyn Crucefix – Between a Drowning Man will be published by Salt in 2023.
Recent publications: Cargo of Limbs (Hercules Editions, 2019); translations of Peter
Huchel (Shearsman, 2019) won the Schlegel-Tieck, 2020. A Rilke Selected is due
from Pushkin Press in 2023. Blogging at http://www.martyncrucefix.com
Nancy Feng Liang – is a bilingual poet and translator living in Massachusetts and
North Carolina. She has translated Henry David Thoreau’s Wild Fruits into Chinese
(published by China’s Culture and Development Press in 2018. Her most recent
poetry collection, Qi Cun Tie, was published by Taiwan Showwe Press, 2020.
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