That Is The Question
Last night the night was ordinarily nightish
There must be the moon and stars out there in the sky or behind the clouds
I did not even go leaning over the windowsill to check it out
For several short hours I sat in the desklamp light over Dante’s La Vita Nuova
Not realizing how long ago he lived
He had a life, I knew, and he had lived and loved
He had met Beatrice and wrote about his misfortunes in poems
In which he would meet her in an extended dream starting at a certain night
When together they would have had the bliss
Of climbing a formidable but promising mountain
Until she flew away and faded, leaving him dazed at the stars
He’d never thought that more than a millennium later
There’d be such a Chinese breathing with him
Through a hundred year old English translation of his vernacular
Despite his belief or disbelief about eschatology and afterlife
Is afterlife pre-revealed in dreams or is life a pre-revealed dream of the eternal life
I had never dreamt of figures in history or in books
All that had made me cry in the dreams or woken me up with a lingering heartache
Happened or would happen to me in one way or another
But among the dreams I know I had last night I cannot recollect a single one
If dreams are desires in whatever disguise
Then last night I did not have desires or my desires did not manifest
If they are the desires from those who present themselves there
Then no one desired me last night
Unless, of course, there might be a temporal gap between dream and reality
Time out of joint? Well, that is the question
For I believe if my loved ones once desired me from the past
Even if it may never occur to them that sometimes I still dream of them
It should not take such a long time to reach, from a few years to decades
And it could not be that I returned to the past or traveled to the future
How could I not be saddened by such a delay
Thinking of the fact that someday my desires would have to reach the loved ones
Quite a long time after my death
Thus forestalling their reciprocal desire-exchange protocols
This drives me crazy, dears,
And it pierces my heart to have a dreadful thought
That some of them might be doing a last survey of their life
When I flashed across their mind
Oh, I may be able to write about all my petty griefs
Good or bad put aside
Can writing do anything about the distance between dream and reality
Jan. 19, 2008
这就是问题之所在
昨夜之夜夜得寻常
外面的天上肯定有星星和月亮
或者起码在云层背后
我甚至懒得起身倚窗查看
好几个钟头竟然那么短暂
我在台灯下埋头阅读但丁的《新生》
想也没想他活在多久以前
他有过动荡的一生，这不用我说，他活过他爱过
他遇见了碧雅翠丝，后来他肯定还梦到她多年
所以他写了两部长诗，令自己在某夜的一次长梦中
与她再次相见，还一起爬了一座山
直到她无影地飞去，留下他看着星星发怔
他不会想到过了千禧年过后
还有我这样的中国人会以一百年前的英语
呼吸他的意大利方言
无论他相信还是不相信末世与来生
来生是否会在梦中预示
或者此生是否是那个永生所预示的一场梦而已
我从未梦到过历史或者书籍中的人物
有时我从梦哭醒，有时我惊醒后带着滞留不去的心痛
但是梦中的一切都已经或即将
以这样那样的方式发生在我的身上
但是昨夜，虽然我知道我肯定做了梦
却一个也回想不起
人们说日有所思夜有所梦，梦是欲望的变形
那么昨夜我没有欲望或者欲望没有显形
如果梦是那些进入我梦境之人的欲望
那么昨夜没有人欲望着我
当然，除非是梦与现实有一段时间差距
脱臼了？哇，这就是问题之所在
我相信我爱着的人曾经欲望过我
即使现在可能想都不会想到我仍然会梦到她们
但她们的欲望也不至于要花这么久时间才能抵达我的梦境
短的几年，长的一二十年
更不会是我昨夜回到了过去或者驶进了未来
我怎能不为这一滞后而悲伤
想一想，这意味着
有一天我的欲望将会在我死后很久
才能抵临我爱过的人的梦境
那么也就预阻了她们与我交换欲望的礼尚往来
这令我难受，亲爱的们，
而一个恐怖的念头闪过，我心如刀割
她们中是否有人在一段我还不知多久以前的时间里
做人生的最后一次回顾，而我闪过了她们的脑海
是啊，我或许也能写出我不足挂齿的小伤悲
写得好坏又能怎样
无论是谁的任何文字都对梦与现实的距离无能为力
2008年1月21日
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