Fan Jinghua: Toward Scenery

　　　Toward Scenery
　　　　　　　　　　　　After a painting
There cannot be such a scene situating itself somewhere
in perceivable reality.
On this paper,
before your eyes,
two screen doors allow a square sight into your vision.
Therefore, a body before the spreading scenery is left behind
When seeing is distancing.

The thatched houses crouch under the space purposely left blank as the sky,
the tile-topped sinuate walls open windows to borrow views,
and the mist-veiled hibiscus are veiled with a mist of spring.
They all appear within your arm’s reach
beyond the river.
But there is no water, for there are no ripples or waves,
and the covered boats seem to float
in a kind of otherworldly blankness of the upper sky,
while willows in the foreground hold crooked postures,
apparently with knurls, but their drooping twigs are fluttering innocently,
like dresses with loosened waistbands
in the spring breezes
where every man can be easily intoxicated without poetry and a poet needs no words.

The fact is
there is not a single passer-by along the riverside walk,
and there are no magpies, doves or crows on the ridges,
no swallows gliding in the middle ground.
This plane is segmented by spontaneous composition
but two sliding doors have cut out a sight
and placed it outside
while there is a landscape of meandering snowy landscape separated on the doors
the left one with the eastbound Yangtze, the right one with thousand-year-old snowcaps.

Distances are arranged vertically into the painting, not perspectively,
but still a pair of eyes must have been configured inside the doors.
The eyes are set on the eaves of the forehead,
then layer by layer down comes the neck, shoulders, chest, trunk
and the lotus-seated bottoms.
In front of them is a teapot on the ground
emitting puffs of steam
waiting for cups
the way a Buddha or a temple sits at a geomantic spot
for worshippers
It is self-focused more than any of us, forgetting
the scenery outside and the broken landscape on the doors
　　　　　　　　　　　　(for WU Qingshui)
　　　　　　　　　　　　Nov. 12, 2008

　　　《憩》Relaxing Room [日] 石川弘Hiromu Ishikawa (1923-)作

　　接近风景
　　　　　　因一幅画而作送吴情水兄弟
事实上并没有那样的风景将自身安放于某个所在
这张纸上
眼前
两扇薄薄的推拉门将视域收紧，方方正正，有远有近
身体被展开的视野抛在后面
看见成就距离

留白的天空下鳞接的黛瓦飞檐
流转的女儿墙开着窗子
芙蓉枝头朦胧着春天的氤氲
它们似乎都伸手可及
它们都在对岸
只是看不到水，因为没有波纹
乌篷船悠悠的
好似浮行于另一个世界的虚空中
柳树近一些，守持着曲折的姿态，应该有许多节瘤
但枝条娉婷，似花布连衣裙散着带子
在江南的和风中
是人就会自醉，而诗人也不需要文字

事实是
没有一个人走过
屋脊上没有喜鹊、鸽子，也没有乌鸦
空中没有燕子的弧线
这风景符合留空和充实的画法
而两扇门将它切到门外
门上的山水被分置在两边，合起来应是千里的绵延
左有大江东去，右则千秋雪山

这褶叠的层次不符合透视
可一双眼睛却被设置在了室内
眼睛被顶在脑门的檐下
渐次向下自然是脖子、肩膀、胸膛、腰杆、莲坐的臀股
席地而坐的壶茶沉稳地
冒着热气
等待随时来朝拜的杯子
它比所有的我们都要自我
忘记门外有他人看得见的景致
门上有断开的山水
　　　　　　　　2008年11月12-13日