Saturday, July 12, 2008

Fan Jinghua: Temporal Lag (An Air)

   An Air: Temporal Lag

It’s your dusk, and evening has not fallen.
Like one in a Chicago street
Where the saxophone did not drive away the doves on the yard
And us sitting on a bridge in the colorfully lit breeze
I heard a Chinese air and hummed the lyrics
“How I wish to pluck one for my hair if the flowers can still bloom next year”
Then you walked over, your blue cashmere in an arc
And pressed a note in the case under the stack, bringing back
A CD, saying the rearranged tune would remind me
Of the air I had breathed, not so exotic as in Turandot

Now my day is breaking
The hard sunshine will strike down like a shower
And the noises from the construction site
This is my Saturday and your Friday
We, living the same time, are kept apart
One in the future and one in the past
I am drinking green tea, imaging in your apartment
What the air smells? Alcohol, aria or insomnia?
There is a candle-lit box
Suspending in my brain, a high window.
           July 11, 2008

   时间差

此刻是你的黄昏,黑暗还没有降落
如那次在芝加哥街头的小广场
一支萨克斯赶不走鸽子
和坐在桥头上看灯火开始映暖凉风的我们
我说那是我家乡的一首小曲,原来的歌词唱到
“我有心采一朵戴,又怕来年不发芽”
于是你走过去,蓝色羊绒衫蹲成一个弧线
将一张钞票压在那盒内,换回一张CD
说那首重新编配的小调将会令我在自己的国家
回味曾经呼吸过的不像图兰多那么异国的风情

此刻我这儿已开始黎明
硬朗的阳光将如阵雨一般坠落
伴随着院墙外建筑工地的噪音
这是我的周六、你的周五
我们同住在一个时间里,却被日期分开
一个在过去一个在将来
我喝着绿茶,想象你的公寓
会有怎样的气味?酒精、咏叹调还是失眠?
我脑后的半空中悬浮着
一只被供烛点亮的灯笼,一只高高的窗子。

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