Niu Han: Enormous Rootstocks

　Enormous Rootstocks
　　　　　　　　　　by Niu Han tr. Fan Jinghua
Behind the village
On the rolling hills
Year after year
Copses grow into new contours.

Deep into every autumn
Children wield sickles
Tree would be cracked down
And only truncated stumps remain.

The copses grow year
After year, and year after year
Their stems are chopped off.
For several decades they are still dwarfs.

Each year the corpses have only half of the time
To breathe with the lowly stubbles.
Anguished and suffocated as they may feel
But decidedly they are not to be smothered.

Their invincible will of life
Steers their growth toward the depth of the earth
Enormous nodes have grown on the underground stems
Which make their rootstalks
Harder and huger than
Any of those of the giant trees

People in the country south of the Yangtze
Would straddle them over the charcoals in the fireplace
And they would prove their worth
As the most durable fuel
Inexhaustible for a whole night and day
Because their lives contain ingrown heat and flame
Of several decades old


　巨大的根块
　　　　　牛汉

村庄背后
起伏的山丘上
每年，每年
长满密密的灌木丛

一到深秋时节
孩子们挥着柴刀
咔嚓，咔嚓
斫光了它们
只留下短秃秃的树桩

灌木丛
年年长，年年被斫
挣扎了几十年
没有长成一棵大树

灌木丛每年有半年的时光
只靠短秃秃的树桩呼吸
它们虽然感到憋闷和痛苦
但却不甘心被闷死

灌木丛顽强的生命
在深深的地底下
凝聚成一个个巨大的根块
比大树的根
还要巨大
还要坚硬

江南阴冷的冬夜
人们把珍贵的根块
架在火塘上面
一天一夜烧不完
根块是最耐久的燃料
因为它凝聚了几十年的热力
几十年的光焰

About the poet:
NIU Han (1923-), a.k.a. SHI Chenghan, has published poetry books Colorful Life (1951), Love and Songs (1954), Hot Springs (1984), Butterflies On the Sea (1985), Silent Cliffs (1986), Selected Poems (1998) etc.

牛汉（1923- ），原名史成汉，出版的诗集有《彩色的生活》（1951）、《爱与歌》（1954）、《温泉》（1984）、《海上蝴蝶》（1985）、《沉默的悬崖》（1986）、《牛汉诗选》（1998）。