It has nothing to do with seeing, or memory or belief.
It is the blink after which the eyes open to find a frightening expanse
Of blankness, as if when an arithmetical operation comes
To the equation mark, there is nothing beyond for the result.
The only thing is a distant star, not a hanging hook, not a rivet either.
It is merely a lonely glitter, for a long cloudless night.
It is like the towns and villages after a high-intensity earthquake,
And gone with them are those children like flowers, parents like grasses,
Elders like fallen leaves, none of whom has a name, all part of a number.
Our distorted faces try hard not to cry, but we just cannot hold back,
While to hold or not to hold has nothing to do with what we are told.
We are chased by belief and memory, like ants on a warming pan,
But we can find nowhere to write down the final answer.
Hopeless hope is the nothingness beyond an equation mark.
April 28, 2009
Note:
This poem is about Sichuan Earthquake one year ago (May 12, 2008). Many many schools (were) crumbled in an instant, many (if not most) of which actually had quality problems (structural -design faults and shoddy materials etc.). There have been cries for investigation into the schoolhouse problems and for an exact number of victims/casualties. However, the authorities seemed to be too busy with "rebuilding" and covering up to reveal the truth. So many people died without a name, and even did not make themselves part of the number (since the number is smaller than the actual one). Some volunteers (NGO is not allowed there) have to play cat-and-mouse games to investigate (not into the quality of schoolhouses) in order to make a more acurrate number of deaths and missing individuals.
绝望的希望
与看无关，与信念或记忆无关，
而是在简单的运算得到答案时，一眨眼，
等号之后只有茫茫的一大片空白。
惟一能够找到的只是一颗星，
远远的，不是悬吊的钩子，也不是铆钉。
只是孤伶伶的一点亮，还有长长的一夜。
犹如大地震动，房舍坍塌，无数村镇——
鲜花的孩童、野草的父母、落叶的老人——
突然毫无名姓地没了，只是凑成一个数；
我们扭曲了脸，试图不哭，却忍不住，
而忍与不忍都与应该无关。
任凭信念与记忆将我们追逼成
热锅上的蚂蚁，我们却写不出答案。
绝望的希望，便是等号之后一片茫茫。
2009年4月28日
按：
地震一年过后，人们仍然不知道死难者都是些谁，因此也就是说具体的遇难失踪人数并不确定，更不要说校舍建筑质量到底有多大问题。有些死者就这么没了，甚至没有进入那个数字。
法国画家格鲁兹(1725-1805)暗示失贞的《破壶》The Broken Pitcher (1763) 
This is a clay stove that looked very similiar to ours when I was a child, but this one is smaller, perhaps for a family of two or three. The bigger black iron pan is for both boiling and cooking dishes. For a family of five or above, normally there are two or even three boiling pans in one oven, and the pan in this picture can be the smallest one. In the countryside, big pans are also used for boiling food for domestic cattle and pigs. We usually burn stalks of corn, wheat, cotton and soybeans, so there is a big space behind the oven.
