Fan Jinghua: A Valediction

　　　　A Valediction

As if all of a sudden, it mellows, in your words and pictures,
Autumn, catalyzed, pours into my spare cup of knowledge
About the places of this season:
Golden Hill, Windy City, Blooming Town and Net-ground Shore
Where people’s walking-away looks so mesmerizing.
There, on campus, Halloween costumes with wings and courtesan faces
Are beautiful, and some under umbrellas hope for a drizzle
More sonorous, but there are only ginkgo leaves
Swirling down and incidentally sticking on the black nylon;
Wind is too small and your skirt does not flare.

For the entire afternoon till nightfall that forces the light
To huddle up under the streetlamp shades, one line
From the cut-out half of an always truncated poem
Haunts my mind “Scent of grasses afar invades the ancient road,”
While I try not to let the image of a bleak city invade my mind
By eroticizing and rejuvenating it with a lovely woman.
The bright morning you said like strokes of dawn clouds
“You are a gem, gorgeous and great,” and I was made
To be more humble and diligent even at night;
But we have been saying goodbye every day, virtually.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Oct. 29, 2009

Note: Bai Juyi's poem "Grass" was truncated in the school text, so that most people only know the first fours lines of the five-character regulated verse, while the latter half is often forgotten. The line "Afar, scents invade the ancient road" is followed by another line in the couplet "The green meets the bleak city".


　　　　　告别辞

秋，在你的文字与照片中，似乎突然熟透，
那醇厚的酒倾满我闲置的记忆之杯，
这个季节，这么多地方：
金色丘陵、风之城、兰花镇、晒网海滨，
人们走开的姿态有着催眠的流动感。
万圣节的校园，天使的翅膀与艺伎的脸
那么粉白，有人因为新买一把伞
而希望小雨能再多一点声响，可只有银杏叶
回旋着飘落，黑尼龙的伞面上总贴着三两片明亮的黄；
风，依然微小，你的长裙不会抛开。

整个下午，有一个句子一直溯洄于我的脑中，
像一尾鱼，直到夜色越来越浓，将一排排路灯的光
挤压成一团团长毛绒，在我心中的长亭短亭，
“远芳侵古道”，来自总被截去的部分，
而我拒绝看见古道尽头一河之隔的那座荒城，
我想象一个美丽的女人走来，遮挡着
灞桥朝雨沾浥我的心尘。
一个阳光明媚的早晨，你说 “你真棒，令我可以欣赏妒忌”；
可你的话带着几抹丹霞，令我更加谦卑与勤奋，
在每个夜晚，我们都说再见，像真的再见一样。
　　　　　　　　　　　　　2009年10月30日