Fan Jinghua: Double-Seven Eve

　　　　　　Double-Seven Eve

Depending on who you are, it can be an involuntary moat
the Queen of Heaven cuts with her hair clasp
for fear that the poor oxherd and his sons might enter her queendom,
a river, due to agitated hand, with gorges, rapids and shoals,
a pair of paired swords that share one sheath.
An old wife’s tale about a paradise bisected into longing and pursuit
and two forgotten half-breeds from blue blood and red.
You look up and you will see
your heavenscape has a majestic long scar, foamy and revolute.
There are of course steady sparkles
for you to fixate, rivet or anchor,
enough for every eye, no matter how many eyes you imagine you have.
But you must try hard to defocus,
and then you may float and forget yourself and where you are.

Simply to extend your arm and level your finger over the billows,
you will make a sky bridge for the doomed family,
while the kids in the baskets on the father’s shoulder pole
scale the weight of love and blood.
You lie on a reed mat or on a narrow bench, waiting patiently
for the gossips of toads, but instead
you hear your mother nagging about the dewfall and illness.
Tonight, she has finished telling the story
which she had long been told a few times, and after a few more times
her good humor may run out: “Go back to your bed.”
You are seven and excited, your brother half asleep,
and she is tired like her exhausted mother, your dead dear grandma.
Nothing comes from the sky, except for stray fireflies.

Tonight you again level your index finger at your eyes
and push it back and forth like a telescopic slide of a trombone;
in the poisoned city air, all that glisters
has a yellowish balloon-like halo, and nothing can be seen in the sky
while screams of cars randomly intersect the field of hearing.
No matter how grand the scale is,
you will never figure out with your knuckles
the ratios between your loved ones and the Milky Way and you.
In terms of the power to point at
and measure the distance and depth of your vision,
the girth of the finger has to be aesthetically out of scale with its length.
When you look at the scar in the heaven and look hard,
you will see the undercurrent of blood and understand
the radius of the hemi-heaven is irrelational to that of your territory.

Note: The seventh day of the seventh month in lunar calendar (August 19, 2007) is Chinese Lover’s Day, as the folklore says that Vega the Weaving Maiden Fairy (the youngest of the seven daughters of the Queen of Heaven) and Altair the mortal oxherd would meet for their once-in-a-year date on the bridge of magpies over the Milky Way.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　August 16-17, 2007

　　　　　七夕

看你是谁，你可以将它视为一道无奈的壕沟
王母娘娘拔下发簪在身后当空一划
那可怜的牛郎父子就永无进入女人天国的可能
这条大河，因为她下手时的激动与游移，带着峡谷、急流和浅滩
一对鸳鸯剑并排躺在一口剑鞘内
这不过是老妇之谭，说的是天堂被思念和追求一分为二
还有两个被神遗弃的人神杂交的后代
你抬头就能看见
天堂之景有一条宏伟的伤疤，刀口后翻、吐着泡沫
当然，还有点点恒定的闪光
无论你想象自己能长出多少只眼睛
你都有所观注、铆钉、锚泊
但是你必须努力散失焦点
然后你便能漂浮，忘了自己是谁、身在何处

只需要伸出手臂、将手指横放在波涛上
你就能给那苦命的人家制造一座天桥
而那父亲扁担两端的孩子在箩筐里
称着爱与血的重量
你可以躺在一方草席或者一条窄窄的长板凳上
耐心地等着听癞蛤蟆的碎嘴
然而你听到的是你妈妈唠叨着露水与生病的联系
今夜，她已经讲完了
她很久以前被讲了几次的传说，她又讲了几次
原本的好心情开始耗尽：都给我回床上睡去。
你七岁，时时兴奋，你弟弟已双眼沉重，
她很疲倦，犹如她那灯干油尽的母亲，你亲爱的死去了的外婆。
天上除了几只离群的萤火虫
没传来任何音信。

今夜你又将你的食指抬到眼睛的高度
前后平拉，好像长号上调音的伸缩滑管
然而在这空气污秽的城市，一切闪光的
都自带一只气球般的昏黄晕光，遮住了天空中可能的景观
远远近近，汽车的惨叫任意割裂着你的听觉
无论那比例尺多么宏大
你都无法以指节
计算出你心爱的人与银河以及你之间的距离之比
按照你手指的指向能力
它的厚度与长度必须比例失调得合乎审美要求
才能丈量你视野的宽广
而当你久久凝视着天堂的伤疤
你会看到血液的潜流，明白
那半个天堂的幅员与你领域的深浅并无血缘关系

注：农历七月七日是中国的情人节（2007年8月19日）。民间传说，织女星（王母娘娘七个女儿中最小的一个）和牵牛星（凡间的放牛郎）将在喜鹊以翅膀搭建的桥上，完成一年一度的跨越银河的约会。
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　2007年8月19日七夕