Friday, July 9, 2021

Lingering at Hainan by Hei Feng, tr. Wang Ping

Lingering at Hainan 

 by Hei Feng, tr. Wang Ping

 

Today I just want a bowl of noodles

The coconut breeze is as soft as the southern music

A piece of glass, so blue

Peace between water and salt

Pieces of paper are flying

White birds whirling, more real than paper

In a space no one can reach

Deep sleep…

But today I

Just want a bowl of noodles

I enter the island through my last grains of rice from Hubei

I can’t deny: I see the island’s sky

“Swishing—“into the landscape of post-industrial country

But today

When the black screen is shut off from the “future”

Today all day

I gaze at the coconut. My attention goes

To the smooth coconut

--sour, perhaps

But I don’t care

For a whole day today, I feel clean

At dusk I borrow a bird nest for the night

I dream birds flying around my dreams

Kakakakaka

Birds didn’t return to their nest

I dream my dreams are hatching their eggs

A bird

Flying

In the sixth dimensional space

Tonight

I can’t close my eyes

Tonight

I think about the bird

More than my wife

Tonight I go over my “lessons” word by word

Tonight, I’m hungry, but I refuse to eat the eggs

The sun shines on me lightly

Like a beach in mirage, after the tide

I learn to wade into the hard water of the self

I wake up

The moon is high

The sun is shallow

 

逗留海南

这一天,我只想吃一碗面

虽然椰风与南韵柔软

一块玻璃很蓝

水与盐平静

虽然有一些纸在飞

一些比纸更真的白鸟在摇

在触及不到的一片空间里

深睡眠……

然而,这一天我

只想吃一碗面

我用最后的几粒湖北大米进入岛屿

不能否认,我看见了岛屿的天空

“砉——”的推进的国家后工业社会的前景

而这一天

在关闭“前景”的黑屏的这一天

整整一天

我只端详椰子。我只关心近处的

一颗光滑椰子

——它也许很酸

但我不怕这种“酸”

而这一整天,我干净

傍晚我在岛语之外借鸟窝过夜

我梦见鸟嘎嘎嘎嘎嘎嘎嘎嘎嘎叫着袅绕着我的

梦境飞

鸟终夜不归

我的梦孵化鸟蛋

一只鸟

在第6维

飞

这一夜

我彻夜无眠

这一夜我思念一只鸟

胜过妻子

这一夜我反复温习“功课”

这一夜,饥饿。但我不吃鸟蛋

太阳很浅地照我

犹如蜃气中的退潮的沙滩

我学习并涉过自己坚硬的水

我醒了

月亮很高

太阳很浅

 

Hei Feng is from Hubei, Black Harvest.

 

_______________________________________________

 

Wang Ping is a Chinese-American poet with over a dozen books to her name who lives in St. Paul, MN. See her webpage, WangPing.com.

 

See my reviews of her latest two poetry books at this post.

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