Translations

Ouyang Yu translates three poems by Shu Cai

Born in 1965, in Fenghua, Zhejiang, Shu Cai was originally Chen Shucai. He graduated with a BA in French literature from the Department of French Language and Literature, Beijing Foreign Languages University in 1987. From 1990 to 1994, he worked as a diplomat in the Chinese Embassy in Senega and has since been working as a research fellow in Foreign Literature Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He won the Medal of Academic Palm Knight in France in 2008. His publications include such collections of poetry as Solitaire (China, 1997) and Short Poems by Shu Cai (Hong Kong, 2004) and his translations of French literature include A Selection of Poems by Pierre Reverdy (China, 2002), Selected Poems by René Char (China, 2002), Selected Poems by Nine French Poets (Shanghai, 2009).

 

 

生日 

关于死亡
生者又能说些什么
而死者恰恰
无法叙说

“瞧,谁也躲不了
被我掂量!”
这可能就是
死神想说的话

死者已果断地死去
生者犹拘泥地活着
最大的困惑永远是
被出生,和必须死

 

永远的海子

一位朋友,心里驮满了水,出了远门
一位朋友,边走边遥望火光,出了远门
一位朋友,最后一遍念叨亲人的名字,出了远门……
从此他深深地躲进不死的心里。

他停顿的双目像田埂上的两个孔
他的名字,他的疼痛,变幻着生前的面容
噩耗,沿着铁轨传遍大地……
多少人因此得救!

兄弟,你不曾倒下,我们也还跪着
我们的家乡太浓厚,你怎么能长久品尝
我们的田野太肥沃,你刨一下,就是一把骨头……
你怎么能如此无情地碾碎时间?

你早年的梦必将实现,为此
你要把身后的路托付给我。像你,
我热爱劳动中的体温,泥土喷吐的花草……
我活着。但我要活到底。

你死时,传说,颜色很好
像太阳从另一个方向升起血泊
你的痛楚已遍布在密封的句子里
谁在触摸中颤抖,谁就此生有福!

 

母亲

今晚,一双眼睛在天上,
善良,质朴,噙满忧伤!
今晚,这双眼睛对我说:“孩子,
哭泣吧,要为哭泣而坚强!”

我久久地凝望这双眼睛,
它们像天空一样。
它们不像露水,或者葡萄,
不,它们像天空一样!

止不住的泪水使我闪闪发光。
这五月的夜晚使我闪闪发光。
一切都那么遥远,
但遥远的,让我终生难忘。

这双眼睛无论在哪里,
无论在哪里,都像天空一样。
因为每一天,只要我站在天空下,
我就能感到来自母亲的光芒。

Birthday

About death
What can the living say
And the dead just
Wouldn’t say

‘Look, no one can avoid
my measuring up!’
That may be what
God of Death wants to say

The dead have died with resolution
And the living, still living punctiliously
The greatest puzzlement remaining
That of being born and having to die

 
 

Hai Zi Forever

A friend, heart filled with water, has travelled far from home
A friend, walking as he looks towards the far fire, has travelled far from home
A friend, murmuring the names of his loved ones, has travelled far from home…
He has since gone into hiding deep in his undying heart

His eyes, stopped, are like two holes on the ridge of a field
His name, his pain, in which the face of his previous life changes
The bad news, spreading across the land along the railway…
So many are saved for that!

Brother, you have not fallen, and we are still on our knees
Our native home so richly abundant you can’t keep tasting it
Our fields so fertile bones turn up when you dig them…
How can you so ruthlessly grind time to pieces?

Your early dreams will definitely be realized, and because of that
You’ve got to trust me with the road behind you. Like you
I love the body temperature in labour, flowers and grasses in the eruption of the mud…
I am alive, but I’ll keep being so till the end

When you died, the legend has it, you looked well
Like the sun whose blood rose in another direction in blood
Your pain already scattered in the enclosed words
He who trembles in the touch will be happy for the rest of his life!

 

Mother

Tonight, a pair of eyes in the sky
Kind, honest, brimful with sadness!
Tonight, the pair of eyes speak to me: Son,
Cry, cry and be strong!

For long, I watch the eyes
That look like the skies
Unlike the dew or grapes
No, but they look like the skies!

Unstoppable tears make me glitter
The May night makes me glitter
Everything so distant
But the distant is something that I can never forget the rest of my life

Wherever they are
The eyes, wherever they are, are like the skies
For every day I stand under the skies
I can feel the light coming from Mother

 

 

Ouyang Yu came to Australia in early 1991 and has since published 55 books of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, literary translation and literary criticism in the English and Chinese languages. He also edits Australia’s only Chinese literary journal, Otherland (since 1995). His noted books include his award-winning novel, The Eastern Slope Chronicle (2002), his collections of poetry, Songs of the Last Chinese Poet (1997) and New and Selected Poems (Salt Publishing, 2004), his translations in Chinese, The Female Eunuch (1991) and The Man Who Loved Children (1998), and his book of literary criticism, Chinese in Australian Fiction: 1888-1988 (Cambria Press, 2008). The English Class (Transit Lounge), has been named as one of the Best Books of 2010 in Australian Book Review and The Age as well as the Sydney Morning Herald. His third English novel, Loose: a Wild History, is forthcoming with Wakefield Press in 2011, which, together with his first English novel, The Easter Slope Chronicle, will form the Yellow Town Trilogy. His latest book of poetry, titled, White and Yu, was released in April 2010 by PressPress. He is now based in Melbourne.