Nanren: At Dusk I Hitch Up a Cart

One poem by Nanren

　黄昏时分，我套上牛车
　　　　　　　　南人　
黄昏时分
我套上牛车
去一块庄稼地
收拾　砍倒一地的麦子

面对这片麦地
想起一个女子曾在这里做爱
想起一座城池曾在这里倒塌
想起一条河流曾在这里流干
而一次次死亡之后
这片割光了的麦地明年又会长出可怕的庄稼

黄昏时分
我套上牛车
满载这一堆能长出尸体的尸体
去养活一个村庄

　　At Dusk I Hitch Up a Cart
　　　　　　　　　by Nanren　tr. Fan Jinghua
At dusk
I hitch an ox to the cart
Heading for a lot of cropland
Baling the felled wheat in the field

The wheat on this soil
Reminds of a woman who once made love here
Of a city whose walls and battlements crumbled
Of a river that ran dry, its course disappeared
After deaths over deaths, terrible crops
Will in the coming year grow out again on this tract now cleared of wheat

At dusk
I hitch an ox to my cart
Loaded with corpses that will produce more corpses
To nourish a village