xiaomaxian: Dedication & Island

Two Poems by Xiaomaxian


　　Dedication
　　　　　　　　　by Xiaomaxian　tr. Fan Jinghua
I’ll give you my hair threads
To tie up
Your darkness
And give you a long time of separation—
I want to take
Between my feverish lips
The short-lived happiness
Of giddiness…the whirling of fallen leaves
Then, our mornings will be
Saturated with the fragrance of ginkgo
Our night is of peppermint
During the afternoon when the sun is fierce
We lie
Occasionally on the grains of gold
We are light for each other
　　　　　　June 22, 2009


　　献诗
　　　　　小玛仙
我给你发丝
系住你的
黑暗
给你长久的离别——
我想用热烈的嘴唇
含住那些
瞬间的幸福
眩晕感……是树叶在摇晃
我们的早晨
会充满银杏树的味道
夜晚是薄荷的
在太阳凶猛的午后
我们偶尔躺在
金粒子上，我们是彼此的光
　　　　　2009.6.22

Notes: This is a lovely love poem. In ancient China, as in the West, a lock of hair is the token for love, especially a keepsake for separated lovers. Here, the poet writes in the tradition, and yet the hair is for her beloved to tie up the low spirits, so that their long separation can become also something she gives out (otherwise it will be hard to endure). It seems that when separation is inevitable, she will take it as something cherishable too, like the hair. The word “threads” in Chinese is homonymic to “thinking (missing)” and has ubiquitously been used in classical poetry.


　　　　Island
　　　　　　　　　by Xiaomaxian　tr. Fan Jinghua
At this moment, moonlight pounces upon your heels
From your study to the courtyard
You light a cigarette
(Beauty dissolves like fragrance and sinks like jade, cruelly…
Ashes fly and smoke thins away)
Your lighter clinks
Shutting off all the light. At this moment
You are an island—in the night
Perhaps in what you see. You dive, you emerge.
　　　　　　June 24, 2009


　　岛屿
　　　　　小玛仙
从你的书房到庭院，月光在此时扑向
经过的地方
你点燃一根烟
（香消玉损般美，残忍……灰飞烟灭）
火机嗒的一声轻响
关闭所有的光亮。此刻
你如一座孤岛——在夜晚
或许在你所见物中，你的沉浮。
　　　　　2009.6.24