Fan Jinghua: Celestial Flowers

　　Celestial Flowers
　　　　　　　　　　　　　Fan Jinghua
They only speak once to words, like Wordsworth
Or Li Po, and their promises are clouds and moons.
The tendrils of their freedom from attachment,
Unable to stand the wind, coil up into themselves.
Driftingness, who can capture it and own?
But all these loners in a crowd take hold of me
And make themselves one of the only ones, diffusing me.
So many selves stay up by a dimmed desklamp,
And image a candle burning in the midair,
As the night grows thicker and thicker, its vanishing sluggish.
Along the road you and I met or will meet, red spider lilies
Bloom and droop by themselves;
This is a colonnade to the atrium of hope,
On each column Manju dances with Saka into an egg-and-dart.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Oct. 18, 2009

Notes: I did never learn the name of the flower when I was in the countryside. My native people called it something like "flowers out of nowhere" since they bloom without anything else connected with a plant flower, most notably the leaves or buds. They just appear and perhaps due to their water-content, their disappearance is also quick, without remains of fallen petals. They are definitely "ghostly," and also they mostly grow in shady places. I came to learn of this flower after I graduated from university and began interested in Buddhism. Anyway, info about this flower can be easily found in wiki after the entry "Lycoris (plant)" or this address.

　　蔓珠莎华

它们只对词语说出心声，只说一次，
如沃兹华斯或李白，它们的承诺是云与月。
无所依恋的卷须是醉眼中的水波，
经不住风，自我蜷曲或折断。
漂泊，谁能占取，拥有？
而这些喜爱群居的独立者占有了我，
我的这群惟一，令我六神无主。
这么多的我坐在调暗了的台灯下，
想象一支蜡烛悬着空气中燃烧，
夜，越来越浓，如此滞怠地消逝着。
你我相遇或将会相遇的路上，
彼岸花各自盛开，凋谢；
那是一条通往希望前庭的柱廊，
柱头饰有卵与飞镖，如蔓珠与莎华共舞。
　　　　　　　　　2009年10月18日