Four Poems by 玉珍 Yu Zhen

A Month of Women Poets

Yu Zhen’s work is rooted in the rural setting of Hunan’s Yanling mountains. Drawing on the pastoral tradition while resisting the platitudes of poverty, she writes poems that are lyrical, occasionally rhapsodic, but lucid and sharp in their observational detail. These four poems showcase the visual richness of her poetry, but Yu Zhen’s wider body of work incorporates a range of styles, sometimes echoing Haizi’s exclamatory invocations of nature, sometimes presenting philosophical claims with the aphoristic assurance of Emily Dickinson, concretising vast abstractions (love, death, suffering) in elemental imagery (fire, water, wind).

——Dave Haysom

I did not know

I had such a precious
past
   the abrasions of poverty
   made these sparks glow

back when I lay in the fields
breathing in the scent of nature
a gentle wind enveloped me
and the scent on the wind drew tears

in years to come, I wonder,
   will life ever be so calm again?
those sacred memories
water impoverished skulls
I have ploughed my way through suffering
and all that we label existence

I did not know they were poems

我并不知道

我曾有一段如此珍贵的
过往——
它们被贫穷打磨出星星的光芒

那时我躺在山坡田野中
闻大自然的香气
温柔的风从四面八方靠过来
风中的香气让人想哭

我想多年以后——
人生是否依旧如此恬静
那些神一样的存在
浇灌了穷人的头颅
我曾痛苦而所向披靡地
从中走过
将这一切称之为活着

我并不知道它们是诗

rainforest

we made it through a spring night
when the bullets were like rain
and we were the rainforest

feral creatures ran from lightning and bad dreams
learning how it feels to flee through the night
running into release

we made it through many a spring night
down to the last grain
while the bullets kept coming
falling all night like meteors

the eye is one final sheet of glass
every mother is crying
beyond the eye, a universe departs

雨林

我们熬过了那样的春夜
在那时子弹就像雨
而我们是雨林

野兽们躲过雷电与噩梦,在夜深
第一次拼命逃跑
直到进入解脱

我们熬过了很多个这样的春夜
留下最后一粒粮食
而子弹越来越多
整夜像流星从那里掉落

眼睛是最后一层玻璃了
所有的妈妈都在哭
眼睛外一个离别的宇宙

back at the gap in the tree

rain awakens primeval dreams within him
indifferent blue rules this bleak hill
up he goes and down again
as the petals of wild flowers were once
blown about by the wind

sleeping clouds roam, drifting without desire
never changing
but there is an ending here
a mist, green and cold, answers his summons
to the eternal gap in the tree

he heads for the thick green foliage on the hill
the undergrowth teems with creatures
preparing for their many parades
spirits are hidden in these silences

a wanderer now, he wants to lean against that gap
and dream
then he was six, now sixty
the space between
is the dream

between cloud and cloud there is nothing

回到树洞面前

雨唤醒他体内的原始梦想
冷漠的蓝色统治孤寂山岗,
他走上去又下来
野花瓣也曾这样
被微风吹来又吹去

云在梦游,无欲地飘荡
一年年永不改变
但有个尽头在这儿
青色冷淡的雾接住他的召唤
通往永恒树洞

他走向山中进入浓绿树冠
丛林忙碌的虫鸟
众多个演习的舞台
神灵就隐藏在那些寂静中

漫游开始了,他要去靠着树洞
做一个梦
那时候六岁现在六十岁
中间就是这
一个梦

而云与云中间什么也没有

one day

sunlight fades from the blank page
crossing the corner of my study
where the camphor bends its shade
even the bird cries bring a cooling sadness
the weather is getting warm
but winter is still with us

now I shall walk through the woods
there will be clean paths beneath the treetops
wildflowers answer the call of birdsong
but no one else walks this path

a gentle sunset melts into a sea of grass
like clouds stunned by the last light
ten years now since my last spring at home
there is no springtime, it seems, in a pandemic

now is the best time to walk this path
when the setting sun scatters the reddest of reds
weaves it through the quiet of other hues

I pass through the woods, walking alone
and the branches fill with shivered gold
as if eternity has revealed itself

一天

阳光从白纸上消失了
穿过我屋旁的香樟暗掉书房一角
连鸟的鸣叫都带着清凉惆怅
虽然天气已经暖和
但冬天还没离开

现在我想去树林里走走,
那些树冠下会有干净小路,
鸟鸣和野花交相呼应
但路上一个人也没有

温柔的晚霞弥散在云朵般的草海
最后的光使它们显得恍惚
我已经十年没有体会过故乡的春天
疫情中几乎没有春天

现在是走向林间小路的最好时辰
落日将极致的红色洒在了那里
与其他颜色的寂静交织在一起

我穿过树林,独自走远
碎裂的金色充满那枝叶
像永恒突然显现了它自己

Comments

There are no comments yet.

*

Your email will not be published
Raw HTML will be removed
Try using Markdown:
*italic*
**bold**
[link text](http://link-address.com/)
End line with two spaces for a single line break.

*
*