Translated from the Chinese by Xin Xu
The Debate Today, the black trunk outside my window is scrutinizing me, my ugliness, inspecting my humanly wicked deeds, inspecting my love for children, inspecting— my hatred of hate, not-love of love love of not-love. It’s trembling in the storm, laughing at the humbleness of my life; its little treetop is laughing at the remains of my pride. I’ve been facing it for four years. Its very roots mock my wisdom and knowledge of life, and continue to mock my belly, my face, and my posture when I sit. What thoughts do you have? What love do you hold? When you and the black tree’s branches face off, you should lean over, lower yourself, and lick the black soil; let nothing clean or shake it despite the new shoots.
Knew Its Name That year, while my mother had her hysterectomy in the town hospital, some kids and I were playing in the backyard. We were so enthralled; we kept playing, playing, as if we could continue to play forever, to play into the iron bones of the dark night. Occasionally I thought of my mother’s surgery, and felt that it must be painful, and I thought of “uterus,” a name filled with sexual connotations. After a long while, my mother was released with a thick quilt around her. Her pale face was like a mask. Her head was also covered. I felt she was going to die. All things were gathered around her. The lights of the dark night and my little friends all freaked out and fled. I didn’t dare come close to her as she seemed to have come back from the Otherworld, where burnt reeds and floating specters abound. A room in my mother’s body has been shoveled away; its rubble and dilapidated walls have been cleaned one by one. Many years later, I was shrouded in a kind of consciousness like white silk. Inside, I learned that there is a thin spun silk handkerchief, like one door after another. My room has also been opened, fixed; its walls have been scraped over and over again. The goldfinch’s crop was once stored with grains of the autumn. I’ve also seen other women carrying their rooms to take baths, to hang out, to travel . . . some are always empty; some already have a resident; some smell sweet; some are withered and growing tumors. They are inlaid between the abdomen and the vagina, like suspended nations or post-war towns; lights there were once lit, extinguished, flickering. They have been burned, haunted by ghosts. Many times, they are airtight, isolated in chaos. Many times, they are as a pot of boiling water; their days go round and round, will and secrets pouring out from rippling water.
To Distinguish She distinguishes her mother from things, from the withered twigs covered by the heavy snows of winter; from the dirty shoes on the washing machine in the bathroom; from the hairs stuck to the mop so difficult to remove; from the sunstains left on the sheets and the quilt hung in the sun. In a dream she trudges, leading her big dog across the vast snow-covered land, across the fields of corn as tall as a man, through the flood of 1998, through the country crowds heading to the market. Her freezing face is most distinguishable among the blurred crowds. As I untie my shoelaces in the darkness my hands tremble; “It’s a long trip. You’ve had a long day.” Now I live as a mother, to distinguish myself as a wife from a mother, to distinguish the husband from the wife, to distinguish the child from the husband, to distinguish myself from the child; I am nearly blind. How I wish that that year, when I was in that lovelorn pain for the first time, leaning back against your knees, could be eternal.
The Mask Get a white human mask, a kid’s toy. Use pigments to paint it. Create a rough artwork. Put your left hand on it and slowly stroke its surface. Veins in each detailed part. Another stroke won’t be so simple; it’s an attempt to infuse one’s will into this human mask. Emptiness fills a thing, yet you are willing to dive in, to examine the gloomy depth of that emptiness. For instance, you once grasped a person in an instant, and though he has long since left you, you’ve still got hold of his abstract self, which is more concrete than ever. Let a will penetrate it. Seek the answer inside an empty creation. To infiltrate it in search of his or her mind is a miraculous journey, no need to depart from or return to it.
Yuan Yongping was born in Northeast China in 1983. She obtained an MA in Literature from the University of Heilongjiang. Her collection Private Life (Siren shenghuo私人生活) received the DJS Award for Poetry in 2012. She currently resides in Harbin and works in publishing.
Xin Xu is a PhD candidate in the Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages at the University of Connecticut. She translates classical Chinese prose and contemporary Chinese poetry; her translations of Yi Sha and Yu Jian have appeared in World Literature Today and Words Without Borders.
World Poetry Review 