小春神入门
大年初二，在台阶上
光头的雪，已替句芒神准备好
落叶做的平底鞋。你跳下
依然在做梦的大床，跑过去
拉开窗帘，将大地之歌
放进来。这是那段日子里
你醒来后很喜欢做的
第一件事。这美好的权力
仿佛是你从母亲手里
硬抢过来的。为了有效避光，
窗帘厚得像小小的帷幕；
而你吃力拉着，就好像窗帷
一旦拉开，我们就会在幽暗中
突然毗邻世界的一个出口。
而你还不能理解的是，这佳节里
还有一个庆典，我们两个大人
渴望以彼此为更紧急的出口。
神圣的借口怎么才能
从你的好奇心那里找到
一阵完美的润滑呢？对啦。
你下楼去看看客厅里的水仙花
开没开？噔噔噔。楼梯的响动
仿佛春祭的鼓声从远处传来。
你再下楼去数数，一共开了几朵？
别忘了查看快要开的花苞。
噔蹬瞪。你这报春的任务
完成得还不够详尽：水仙的花瓣
是五瓣还是六瓣，你看清楚了？
蹬瞪噔。再去观察一下，
五朵水仙里，哪个是姐姐，哪个是
最小的妹妹？这回可是有点考验
你小小的眼力呢。瞪噔蹬。
几个回合下来，你开始觉察到
你下楼去的时候，我们
仿佛有一件好事，刻意瞒着你。
蓝色沙漏
刚学会说话，你便拥有了
第一只沙漏。作为玩具
买来的小东西里，它最像
一个诱饵。它的安静
不啻是它的计谋，它安静于
它也可以是一个送给大人身上的
老小孩的礼物。它的表演
随时都可以开始。它的意义
取决于作为一种即兴的天真，
童年的兴趣能否从你身上
取得意外的效果。沙子的小魔术，
它属于炫技派：摆在任何地方，
它首先要做的就是，令时间的情绪
敏感到它的动静；下面的满了，
上面的，就会因突然的空虚
而获得一次透明的自由。
它的示范性非常直观——
所有的空虚都是暂时的；
越是空虚的，越是精通下一步
如何自满。如此，构造简单，
里面却埋伏着一个精巧；
它甚至嗅到你粉红的身体里
藏着一个可爱的小兽。
它忠实于时间的戏剧：来自你的
小小的触摸，即时光的抚摸。
作为回报，两个玻璃球
嘴对嘴，将时间的秘密
活活密封在沙子的眼泪中。
诗二首
臧棣
These poems come from The Loquat Boy: Elegies for my Son, a collection Zang Di wrote after the tragic, accidental death of his only child. These are poems of mourning and darkness, of hopelessness in the face of unimaginable loss. A father’s love and pride does not end with such an ending, yet ordinary life continues on, sometimes seemingly in a cruel reproof of such emotions. Yet there are consolations to be found in these poems as well, in the memories of a child’s wonder and discovery, in his playfulness and his inveterate curiosity. As is true throughout Zang Di’s work, the natural world plays a fundamental role, serving as an attestation that there are greater mysteries and processes than human beings can conceive of at work all around us. A narcissus opens according to its own specifications, impervious to the human condition. And then there is also the consolation of the unavoidable passage of time: “What it demonstrates is intuitive—/ all emptiness is temporary.” Zang Di shows us that even in the midst of profound grief, poetry offers a way out of the caverns of darkness and back into the light of the world.
Zang Di was born in 1964 in Beijing, and is the celebrated author of many books of poetry, including most recently 最美的梨花即将被写出 (The Most Beautiful Pear Flower About to Be Written; 江苏凤凰文艺出版社, 2023). He has been featured at many international festivals including the Rotterdam Poetry Festival and the Princeton Poetry Festival, and has received numerous awards for both his poetry and his poetry criticism. He has been named one of China’s Ten Most Outstanding Poets on three separate occasions. He is a professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Peking University.
Eleanor Goodman is an award-winning translator and author. Her first poetry collection is Nine Dragon Island (Zephyr Press, 2016), and her translations include Something Crosses My Mind: Selected Poems of Wang Xiaoni (Zephyr Press, 2014), Iron Moon: An Anthology of Chinese Workers Poetry (White Wine Press, 2017), and The Roots of Wisdom: Poems by Zang Di (Zephyr Press, 2017). Her newest translation, In the Roar of the Machine: Selected Poems by Zheng Xiaoqiong, is forthcoming in The New York Review of Books poetry series. She is a research associate at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University.
