Fan Jinghua: The Only Garden

　　　　The Only Garden
The only garden exists for the passers-by, never
Belongs. Here, no one’s ever seen anyone else.
Self is a pair of moving eyes, in which the images
Of sound, color and wind conceive themselves.
Red canna petals iced with snowflakes,
Plum flowers, greenish white, fluttering like butterflies,
Wreathing the green abdomen of a big katydid
That shines like a woman in late pregnancy.

The one-armed dusk with the hand in its trouser pocket,
The finial iron fences with rusty bars.
I have circled the garden three times, and upon my reaching
A picket, all the tiny mouths in the section clam up.
There is a statuette under a tree that watches so intently
How a snake shed its skin and emits dim light of a brook
That when I come near, it is startled and freezes into stone,
A slender crescent of tongue grown between its lips.

The buildings are vampire’s teeth into the night sky,
And my finger points at it, like a glass cutter rolls around,
Enclosing so many different constellations in one irregular circle.
My finger bends and spring, flipping at those canine towers,
And a piece of paper wobbles down, dotted with stars.
She sits under a walnut tree, as if in the tent of a quilt,
Reading with a flashlight The Little Red Riding Hood,
She, an orphan, among the guarding ghosts of her grandmas.
　　　　　　　　　　　　August 24, 2008


　　惟一的花园

这惟一的花园只是存在，决不属于
走过的人看不到任何人，包括自己
我，是一双运动的眼睛
声、色与风在里面融成景象
美人蕉的花瓣沾着雪粒
李子花白得泛绿，蝴蝶一样闪动
纺织娘翠绿的肚子被遮掩了一半
像一个足月的孕妇

黄昏的独臂插进了裤兜
铁栅栏都锈蚀了，插销无法打开
我围着它走了一圈又一圈
所到之处，小嘴巴都立即闭上
有一只小雕像看着一条蛇
蜕皮，那小溪的光令它忘我
当我的脚步近了，它瞬间凝固
双唇间还垫着一弯月牙儿的舌头

四周的房子犬牙交错地咬着夜空
我伸出食指在天上划玻璃
没有任何已知的围墙能够这样
将不同的星座圈在一起
然后我轻弹几个柱子似的塔楼
一块天空就像纸一般飘下来
一个孤儿，在核桃树的帐篷下
读小红帽的故事，她外婆的亡魂在空中踱步
　　　　　　　2008年8月24-25日