Helen Pletts translates work by Ma Yongbo 马永波
Wander around the Barren Mountain from Afternoon till Evening
on the Sunny World Poetry Day Leaving the Dull Books Behind
When you enter mountains, afternoons stretch
and lengthen like days; mesmerise.
You rub together your cold red palms,
look over valleys, where a crane spreads its wings,
glides along the brook below; follows the formless airflow.
At high altitude,
only the infrequent chirrup of cicadas
breaks the solitude.
Wild roses of last year are still in bud.
The grass flowers wither; small-button-sized
they appear on the peaks of uncharted silence.
Pathways abandon the earthly world
—journey to oblivion.
The grass is thick with grasshopper legs,
all cutting as countless saws; to dismember imaginary locks.
If poetry is pointless—unable to bridge souls,
rediscover its origin
Why then, can I hear someone sing?
Sing at an invisible altitude?
—in the depths of woods—sing—
as a blue skirt flutters against the wind.
Grounded thoughts return back to the trees,
rocks and brooks; the substance of mountain.
The mineral veins of each hidden peak, form in silence
—silence may be the only path
where unresolved past coexists with peace.
诗歌日阳光明媚的下午，抛开厌倦的书本，去荒山里游逛至晚 作者 马永波
下午进山的人都会多活上一天
他们从这山望着更高的山
搓着通红的大手望山气变化
或是望着下面的山谷
那里有一只白色大鸟展开翅膀
沿溪流滑翔，捕捉无形的气流
空山寂寂，最初的蝉鸣断断续续
去年的野蔷薇还没有开
钮扣大小的草花无风自落
这山静得好像从未有人来过
那些荒芜的小径不是通往人世
而是通往遗忘
草丛中似乎有众多蚱蜢的大腿
无数把小锯条在锯着各种无形之物
和各种锁头。诗歌终究是徒劳的
它通达不了他人的心灵
像那些不断分岔的岐路
再回不到原处。可为什么还有人歌唱
在看不见的高处，在深林幽谷
把鼓满风的蓝布衫猎猎振动
还是回到，草木，石头，流水
它们组成了山，而山的本身
还在更远的山里，像矿脉
保持着沉默。也许这是唯一的道路
虽然已经荒芜，杳无人迹
却让你安于时间带来的一切
Originally written on National Poetry Day in 2016
*****
Ma Yongbo 马永波 translates work by Helen Pletts
树冠的羞怯
树木共享周围空间的弧线
形成阳光滤镜
在思考中成长
刚好可以居于其中
你抬头观察树木如何呼吸
屏住你自己的呼吸，全神贯注，
每个树冠都彼此羞怯
甚至我们之间的空气
crown shyness
trees share the arc of the surrounding space
shape sunlight filter
grow in thinking
just enough to live in
you look up and see how each tree breathes
hold your breath and concentrate,
each crown is shy of the other
even the air between us
Ma Yongbo 马永波 Ph.D. was born in 1964. He has published over seventy original works and translations since 1986. He is a leading scholar in Anglo-American postmodernist poetry, the Chinese translator of Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Williams, Ashbery and Moby Dick. Currently, he is a professor at the Faculty of Arts and Literature at Nanjing University of Science and Technology in China.
马永波，男，1964年生，文学博士，
Helen Pletts: (www.helenpletts.com) Word & Image with graphic artist Romit Berger exclusively on www.inksweatandtears.co.uk. Shortlisted for Bridport Poetry Prize 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023, twice longlisted for The Rialto Nature & Place 2018 and 2022, longlisted for the Ginkgo Prize 2019, longlisted for The National Poetry Competition 2022. 2nd prize Plaza Prose Poetry 2022-23.
Pletts & Berger’s Word & Image collection your eye protects the soft-toed snowdrop (2022) is published in hardback by Gama Poetry Press. A limited number of copies are available here.