Mo Ye 莫邪 (b. 1950)

SELECTED POEMS

放生

人类以鲜血涂写
遗嘱。烽烟有腥味
令人窒息令人目盲
你不应诞生。如此年代
和土地，不允许生命延续
你为何诞生

放生你。在河上
任你哭声浮游啼声漂流的
是你的母亲。因为
一块不幸的土地
是她的母亲

哀哀泣血，在河岸
母亲忍受剜心的痛楚
不能以泪水表达她的悲伤
她早已枯干。她
不能以营养的液体饲你
早已枯干一如大漠里的
砂砾

太多的人口
悲号了很久的饥饿
饥肠如刀，割切他们
空虚的消化器官
你太迟到，这里
只有空气。而人类
活的皆苍白如死，死的
皆鲜血淋漓

放生你。母亲为你
祈求诸神睁目
如神存在，如神果真存在
他们必遣使传说中的母狼
哺育你，赋你以伟大
且使你救活一切
自濒死而智而善

设你命运若此
交付你
予任何一神而众神庇护。
在这河中
你必不遭溺。亦不恨
不恨母亲的放生

by Mo Ye 莫邪
from Mo Ye’s Acacia Tree (2006)

Deliverance

Humans, we scrawl our history in 
blood. The smoke flares reek,
Suffocating, blinding—
You should not have been born. In such times, 
On such soil which halts life
Why were you even born?

Be delivered. Along the river,
Your mother lets you float your tears
and drift your cries. Because
An unfortunate land
Mothered her.

Weeping blood, by the river,
Mother endures the pain of a gouged heart,
unable to express her grief in tears––
She has long withered. She
Cannot feed you with the liquid of nutrition;
Long dried up—like desert
Sand

Far too many
Have been starved for too long.
Hunger cuts like a knife 
into their empty bowels.
You are too late.
There's only air. And the living
All pallid as death, the dead
All drenched in blood.

Be delivered. For you, Mother
Begged the gods to open their eyes.
If gods exist, if gods do exist,
They will send the she-wolf of legend
To nurse you, to make you great,
That you may save all things
From the brink of death to wisdom and goodness.

If this be your fate,
May you be entrusted to
any god or gods for protection.
In this river
You shall not drown. Nor hate,
Nor hate your mother for delivering you.

by Mo Ye 莫邪
translated from the Chinese by Yap Hao Yang, Theodorus Ng and Jedidiah Huang
with edits by Laura Jane Lee
from Mo Ye’s Acacia Tree (2006)

 

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