Poems-1

Translations by Clayton Eshleman and Lucas Klein, August 2009

The Landscape at Degree Zero

It is the sparrow hawk who teaches song to swim
it is the song that retraces the earliest airs

We exchange fragments of delight
and enter the family from different routes

It is the father who has confirmed the dark
it is the dark that leads to the classics’ lightning

The door of weeping shuts with a thud
leaving the echo to pursue its wail

It is the pen that flowers within despair
it is the flower that resists necessity’s path

It is love’s beam that awakes
to brighten the landscape at degree zero


Sower

A sower walks into the hall
it’s war out there, he says
you are wallowing in vapidity
shirking your duty to warn of the danger
I am come in the name of the fields
it’s war out there

I leave the hall
all around scenes of the harvest
I start to design the war
to perform death
The crops I torch
flare up like wolf signals

One thought is driving me crazy:
he is sowing seeds onto marble


Untitled

A hundred thousand windows shimmer
these sooth-sayers
are between yesterday and the sea
Oh the joys of getting lost

A bridge becomes reality
spanning public rays of light
while the secret voyage touching
yesterday’s rose provides
a dilemma for each sheet of paper

a dawn for each of my mother’s tears


The Border

The storm turns toward the future of the north
the roots of the sick wail underground
the sun’s propeller
compels the bees to change into light
chains of envoys
scatter seeds into wind-snatching ears

Streams remembered
will never end
sounds stolen
have become the border

At the border there is no hope
a book
gulps down a wing
and then inside the solid ice of language
are the atoning brothers
for which you struggle


THE REPLY

Contempt is the passport of the contemptible,
Gravitas is the epitaph of the grave.
See, in this aureate sky,
the bent, floating reflections of the dead.

They say that the glacial era has passed,
why then is ice everywhere?
The Cape of Good Hope has been sighted,
why do a thousand ships still clash on the Dead Sea?

I have come into this world,
bringing only paper, cord, and shadow,
to defend before the trial
those voices that have been judged:

I tell you, world,
I—do—not—believe!
Be there a thousand challenges underfoot,
count me as number one thousand and one.

I do not believe the sky is blue;
I do not believe the thunder’s echoes;
I do not believe that dreams falsify;
I do not believe in death without retribution.

If the sea is doomed to smash the embankments,
let all the brack dump into my heart;
if dry land is doomed to rise,
let all humanity claim a new summit.

A new turn for the better with twinkling stars
is being stitched into the unbarricaded sky—
it is an ideogram from five thousand years ago,
the staring eyes of the people of tomorrow.


BEYOND

A bottled up storm commands the sea advancing
beyond the dock, on a night afloat with insomnia
lovers embracing link up chains of power
beyond the painting’s frame, classically smiling plaster statues
use a single day’s shadows to speak
beyond belief, stallions have caught up with death
relentlessly the moon stamps its seal on black events
beyond the story, a plastic tree flaps in the breeze
this dismal grain is the excuse for our existence


APPLE AND STUBBORN ROCK

The sea’s prayer ritual
one bad weather bending down

in vain stubborn rock guards May
resisting the green contagion

the four seasons take turns axing the tree
many stars are identifying the road

with his balancing skills the drunkard
breaks the inner siege of time

a bullet pierces an apple
life has been put on loan


A NEW CENTURY

Hearts leant to honor, the earth darkens
we read the light in the Book of
Cement, read the truth

The golden bomb blows up
we are willing to turn into victims
and to display our wounds to others

On some photo-negative an archeologist
will discover the spirit of the times
which a child grabs onto, saying no,

it is history that prevents us from flying
birds that prevent us from walking
legs that prevent us from dreaming

we who give birth to ourselves
who are birth



Keyword

My shadow is dangerous
The performer employed by the sun
delivers final knowledge
which is empty

That is the dark nature
of the termite’s work
the footsteps through the air
of the smallest child of violence

The keyword, my shadow,
hammers the iron inside dreams
stepping to the rhythms
a lone wolf walks in

The dusk undefeated by anyone
the egret that writes on the water
a life a day a sentence
ending

Landscape Over Zero, 1996


Insomnia

You are outside your window looking at your
whole life’s fluctuating beams

Eyes blinded out of jealousy
stars take off against the wind
surpassing death’s metaphor
unfolding morality’s landscape

At that place called Wellspring
the night finally catches up to you
its insomniac army
salutes the flag of solitude

Rolling and tumbling the night watchman
illuminates Baudelaire’s panicked flower
a cat leaps into the long night
dream tail flashing once

Landscape Over Zero, 1995



As Far as I Know

Only when those people advancing to the legend
cleared away its great mountain
was he born

I set out from that legend
to now arrive in another country
turning over alphabets
to fill each meal with meaning

On tiptoes to touch the mark of time
the war is still too distant
his father too close
He buries his head to pass a test
steps onto a boundless deck.

The walls have ears
but I must match his speed
to write!

He paints the road red
allows the fenghuang making
signs of dying to descend
Ambiguous roadsigns
encircle the winter—
even music is snowing!
I am extra careful
under each character is an abyss.

When a huge tree
quells wind from all eight directions
his garden
goes to waste from fantasy

Carelessly I flip through
his tarnished record
believing solely in flowers from the past.

He forged my signature
to grow into a man
switched coats with me
to infiltrate my nights
searching for that legend’s blasting
cap.

Landscape Over Zero,1995


Prague


A swarm of country moths attack the city
street lamps, spectral faces
long, slender legs holding up the night sky

There are specters, there is history
unmarked on the map a subterranean vein
is the thick nerve of Prague

Kafka’s youth passed through the square
dreams are cutting class, dreams
are the stern father sitting in the clouds

There is a father, there are rights of inheritance
a rat is wandering the palace halls
attendants to the shadows a bustling entourage

A carriage setting out from the century’s gate
turns into a tank midway
truth is choosing its enemies

There is truth, there is forgetting
a drunk quivering like a stamen in the breeze
shaking off the curse of dust

Traversing the bridge of time over the Vltava
River, entering the daylit glare
the ancient statues are full of enmity

There is enmity, there is splendor
a vendor mysteriously unfolds a swatch of velvet
please purchase this fine weather gathered by pearls.

Old Snow,1991




Note

Earlier translations of these poems can be found in The August Sleepwalker (translated by Bonnie McDougall, New Directions, 1990) and Landscape Over Zero (translated by David Hinton and Yanbing Chen, New Directions, 1996). Landscape Over Zero includes the Chinese texts along with the English versions, but for “Prague,” from The August Sleepwalker, the reader of Chinese may consult Bei Dao shige ji 北岛诗歌集 (Nanhai chubanshe, 2003). Clayton Eshleman and Lucas Klein decided to offer alternatives to the McDougall and Hinton / Chen versions because they felt that, based on their knowledge of Bei Dao and his work, more accurate and substantial versions were possible. Bei Dao has given them permission to translate and to publish their versions of his poetry.

THE ROSE OF TIME

when the watchman falls asleep
you turn back with the storm
to grow old embracing is
the rose of time

when bird roads define the sky
you look behind at the sunset
to emerge in disappearance is
the rose of time

when the knife is bent in water
you cross the bridge stepping on flute-songs
to cry in the conspiracy is
the rose of time

when a pen draws the horizon
you're awakened by a gong from the East
to bloom in the echoes is
the rose of time

in the mirror there is always this moment
this moment leads to the door of rebirth
the door opens to the sea
the rose of time


The Answer
by Bei Dao Translated by Bonnie S. McDougall

Debasement is the password of the base,
Nobility the epitaph of the noble.
See how the gilded sky is covered
With the drifting twisted shadows of the dead.

The Ice Age is over now,
Why is there ice everywhere?
The Cape of Good Hope has been discovered,
Why do a thousand sails contest the Dead Sea?

I came into this world
Bringing only paper, rope, a shadow,
To proclaim before the judgment
The voice that has been judged.

Let me tell you, world, I______do____not_____believe!
If a thousand challengers lie beneath your feet,
Count me as number one thousand and one.
I don't believe the sky is blue:
I don't believe in thunder's echoes:
I don't believe that dreams are false:
I don't believe that death has no revenge.

If the sea is destined to breach the dikes
Let all the brackish water pour into my heart;
If the land is destined to rise
Let humanity choose a peak for existence again.

A new conjunction and glimmering stars
Adorn the unobstructed sky now:
They are the pictographs from five thousand years,
They are the watchful eyes of future generations.