Fan Jinghua: Chen Yun (1763-1803)

　　Chen Yun, Wife to a Poor Poet (1763-1803)

Your man loves you. His love even makes him sorry for himself,
But that does not make him a rivet fixing meaning with your everyday world.
You exist only within the walls of his family, and the gate does not open.
Looking out of your bedroom window, you see the gate facing the distant,
But then the gate is so distant that you have not been able to open it on his returns.

You imagine a kerchief into a blank sheet of drawing paper and a few imaginary
Strokes making it into birds in the sky. You do not have to suggest directions
Or the time of the day. You do not even look up when drawing. No necessary.
The only necessity is to compose a couplet or two in your mind and belly,
For even the carved seals will not arrest time like a paperweight does a letter.
So you have faith. He will learn your lines, and that is enough for you.

This autumn lasts longer and deeper than you have expected,
And it falls into the recess of solitude.
If life can not be spring of flowers and bees, better let it be autumn.
You have learned in early years that if one’s bosom
Is familiar with one’s private strangeness, before long poetry will grow in there.
Spring is also good for being alone, but the toad of your soul
Will crawl out to the arm to prey on flying insects.

In summertime, you cannot disguise yourself as a man, and it is also good
For you can wear jasmines on your hair.
You may recline in the west chamber, making faces at the spicy line
He challenges you into a couplet, and curl your lip at the small snakes
In the wine glass in which shades of ghosts make love…
A late night with a full moon, when he slips out of you, the spirit of that toad
Flies away through the window like a wisp of blue smoke.

Oh, my brother dear! My feminine element is a little too consuming and sharp,
And I’ll have to find you a woman round-shouldered and simple-minded,
So that when I am dead waiting for you to join me in another life,
You still have a warm and tender body to pillow and touch.
It’s a shame that this winter is frozenly stagnant, and I have not yet
Seen any waist and wrist that I’d love to see you fond of touching.

You write down this line with the ink of imagination—
Her shadow, nibbled by autumn, looks thinner and colder.
You read it for several times, unvoiced, and feel the last syllables too heavy,
Wondering, which side autumn light should strike, face or back, to make
A smoother silhouette, and in which hours of the day he may feel like to
Recite a heroic couplet to the wild geese in the sky over your head.

This moment is shameful. No playful hand of his gropes to feel your sicken heart.
He is absent, away in some distant town, leaving your daughter and son
At the mercy of strangers. You used to sneak back into your bedroom, between errands,
With fake irritation, tucking your cold hand into the quilt to get him out of the bed.
You used to lure him with a mini-landscape that was composing by the courtyard wall.

What you can have is too transient. In the early morning light,
You can barely see “Chrysanthemums swell with the frost.”
This is actual, and the petals may be comparable with your lungs.
Your only possession, lying bare on the desk-dresser, is a fragrant pouch
Stuffed with lines and couplets never developed into a finished poem,Waiting for him to read before he burns them back to you.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Feb. 24-26, 2009

Note: CHEN Yun was the wife to the poor scholar poet Shen Fu (1763-1825) who wrote a memoir entitled Six Chapters in a Floating Life. She once said about her fate that she was “stricken with a bitter incarnation and over-obsessed with passion” which she thought would be responsible for her short life, and she died with the last breath to her husband “next life.”


　　　陈芸 (1763-1803)
　　　　　　　“……命苦，兼亦情痴”

你的男人爱你，爱到他自己也心疼自己，
但这并不能令他成为连接意义与世界的铆钉。
你，只存在于他家的院墙内，而大门不开；
从窗子看出去，大门面向远方，大门
那么遥远，你还未曾走过去亲迎他的归来。

想象一方丝帕为素纸，抹几笔，就是鸟儿
越过天空，不需要方向、不需要时辰。
不抬头，因为无此需要，你只要腹语
一个对偶的诗句，不必落墨；
即便镌刻在石头上，也镇不住时间；
他迟早会知道、记下，这就够了。

今年的深秋比想象的还要持久，
越来越适合独处。
如果不能春花灿烂，那么就一直秋着好了；
你早已发现，怀抱陌生，久了，就孕育诗句。
春，也适合一个人，只是
灵魂的蛤蟆会爬到皮肤上觅食小飞虫。

夏天，你难以扮成男人；不过，也好，
你将茉莉花插在发髻上，在西厢
做鬼脸，接他抛来的尖薄上联，撇撇嘴，
花枝颤动的影子在酒盅里如小蛇……
那是一个月残的夏夜，他侧身滑离你的瞬间，
那只魂就如青烟从你的腋下飘出窗外。

——哦，弟弟，我不能让你侵染我的阴冷；
我要给你寻一个憨直圆润的女人，
让我在来生等着你的时候，你还有
一个热乎乎的身体可以抚摸、可以枕。
只是，这个冬季太壅滞了，我还没有找到
我喜欢看你偷捏的肩胛和手腕——

你以想象的墨汁写下：
“那人的影儿被秋光侵扰，更觉寒瘦”；
默念一遍，总觉得尾音太浓。
秋光照着前心还是后背，才会多几分敞亮？
从清晨到黄昏，什么时候
他或许会在颠沛中吟诵两行豪迈，
应和你目送的大雁？

而此刻，没有手戏探帐内你病蚀的心经，
他蹒连在异乡，一双子女本非娇生，更无力惯养。
你多么喜欢看他孩子一样懒床，这样你才能
偷偷潜回卧室，低声催促他，
说院墙下有细腻的景正在低微地铺张。

你可以占有的，只在匆匆之间闪进眼帘，
天蒙蒙亮的时候，你瞥见
“菊花因积霜而虚胖”——这是实景，
堪比你的心瓣因咳血而卷缩。
你惟一的私产，在小书案上，
一个香囊，塞满你从未成篇的诗句，
待他回来焚烧，归还给你。
　　　　　　　　　　　2009年2月24-6日