CONTEMPORARY CHINESE POETRY – An Qi, Ba Ling and Chen Guiliang

PARTING BEFORE DAYBREAK – First the day, then daybreak, and finally the time for parting. Local time in Beijing is 7 o’clock according to the TV. As a child, I liked to lie in bed and wait for daybreak, my silver broach stayed in its soft dormant curve. I counted my fingers, exactly ten. Almost daybreak, but no light in the sky. At daybreak you come. Daylight is gone when you go. Days with light, days without light, days come, days go. You come, you go, coming and going, walking to me, and away from me. Now a grown-up, I still daydream, waiting for daybreak like waiting for an archaeologist to excavate, patting me with a spade and expose me to daylight. Oh, oh, just as I feel the thrill, I see your hand leaving. (An Qi)

EVENING REPAST – To focus our attention, let’s divide our preparation into a few stages: remove the scales, slit the belly, scoop out the guts, rinse. Another example: choose a plump clove of garlic. The best soil and the softest sunlight cause a qualitative change, transform living things. During an evening repast, in the spirit of mutual celebration, my son and I focus our attention within the radius of the candle light. “You see, owing to our great efforts, instead of eating garlic, we are eating fresh garlic shoots. They are like fish, very shapely, very seductive.” (Ba Ling)

FILLING IN THE BLANKS – Heaven, you see, is blank, so blank, such a vast, blank, I wonder what it takes to fill it. It reminds me of Death, and the way it is registered on a clan’s genealogy; each entry requires a person to give up his life. On a spring afternoon, my father suddenly passed away, filling a generation’s blank space. I know more kinsmen will fill up the remaining blanks. It won’t take long, before I replace these people to become a husband, a father, giving my love unconditionally, and know there will be another who will do as I do, fill in, fill in. (Chen Guiliang)