長短歌行(2013)

《長短歌行》(Songs Long and Short： A Collection of Poems)（台北：洪範，2013）

Four Poems by Yang Mu, translated into English by Göran Malmqvist (馬悅然英譯四首都出自「長短歌行(Ch’ang-duan ko-hsing)」)

FLOWING RHYTHM  (〈跌宕〉, pp.104-105)

The evening sun recklessly hits the snowline, in the empty forest 

a flock of crows beat their frozen wings and fly, stirring up confusion,

into the lost landscape; their dreary flitting to and fro

causes the light to be dismembered

like memories on a nightmare’s thin coating

showing themselves as fleeting images of uncertain forms; suppose

I were able to master my own self and know all that I know

the entire set−up would suddenly be transformed, I would turn to fix my eyes

on parts as yet unknown, and allow my senses

to stock up contrarieties in time and space, or abandon them in a sense of frustration,

unresistingly follow the rapid current
and with flowing rhythm enter into the floodtide of the sea.

AS YET UNATTAINED (〈未及〉, pp.106-107)

Waking up with a start: if there are old matters as yet unattained

in a remote region somehow

never properly investigated and now disappearing without trace, one after another…

Half are empty thoughts in this barely awake state,

the rest form hordes and surge forward, their backs against

the gigantic darkness, tearing it apart,

just as fireflies disintegrate in early autumn

to gather again around the pools or 

at the farthest side of an embankment where undercurrents are born.

Saffrons and the tastes of tropical fruits in brilliant profusion,

autumn ripeness so swelled that all senses tremble

─ judging from my oblivious spirit, one way or another ─

it’s only that this time waking up with a start makes me hesitate: stay put

or pursue the remains as yet unattained at the very moment it has been foretold?

Stopping short, I turn and see myself, exhausted, confined

to suspended speed and inert metre

and raise my hand to assign the sluggish light to a place out of reach

just as the autumn fireflies twinkle faintly in the distance.

ON MEETING  (〈有會而作〉, pp.58-59)

I wonder, that which left so quietly last night and was lost in the incomplete

parabel, if it were able to manage the twists and turns of the road

and return, I might not be able to recognize it –

Just as two stray stars, having by chance encountered each other

on the slanting plane of the universe, without finding time to light up,

turned pale with anxiety and decided to rush to

an even more distant as yet unknown – but perhaps

they might appear on the scene at this very moment, bearing witness

that they had agreed to meet but failed to keep that promise.

LECTURES (〈講學〉, pp.110-111)

Yes, it does seem that I have climbed innumerable levels of clouds

to land from a strange world and yet fearlessly walk along

the path of moist red tiles, seeking, to confirm

that on the road ahead a small two-storied library will float up

before my eyes in the moonlight; when the rain is over

the evening breeze will fan us where we sit cross-legged to listen to lectures

by the water’s edge, fanning away all our concerns and worries, cinnabar and

ferules and the discipline that might otherwise be forgotten

and the customs we have been forced to obey ─ under the old pine tree a volume

thread-bound in a yellow case that will never fade, its fragrance never evaporate.