Dream of a Dutch sky
(in this life the stone is a Dutch sky, and in Chinese, there is a saying: 浮生若梦 – the floating life is like a dream)
The sky on 19th February looks like jade. A kind that is placed beneath a magnifying glass, heavy, but hopelessly exquisite, with an indescribable association to the delicacy of ancient Chinese romance.
The sky is a slice of a giant stone, weighing on people’s shoulders and in the evening their minds. The clouds are long ago buried as flower petals by a young lady who befriended the capriciousness of life, which are now fated to reappear in the dream of a Dutch sky. They reemerge and disperse, frozen like willow catkins in ice. If one shuts one’s eyes, one can hear the muffled murmuring of the thick clouds, like a man swallowing a lump in his throat. The grief vibrates with the field, the dark slack mud, the dew-covered grass, and the ducks and geese on the farm. The clouds are crafted as the grain of jade. They descend and weave a web, casting a net of stiff gloom onto the mundane world, so, all the foggy breaths on the earth are concealed and the mortals won’t be reminded of their past.
As if they were sweeping through a deep sigh exhaled by god, planes incessantly fly across the overcast sky. Their navigation lights signal through the layers of clouds, which strikes those drifting in a foreign land with the transience of life. The giant machines unhurriedly travel through the veils of the dream, like a prehistoric animal reincarnated in amber.
The sky looms like viscous phlegm tossing a sense of ominousness into people’s hearts. It overlooks the distant greetings between stranded souls submerged in bleakness, and can’t help recalling its family’s rise and fall in the previous existence. “Like a dream, an illusion, a dewdrop, and a flash of lightning”, it thinks, “like those who scatter and wander as strangers to the tireless crowd on this plain and whose tears accumulate over time.” The dismay and unrest that have been cast into the galaxy many years ago return every winter and transform into unseen anger and a wrenched heart, living in the endless details of life. And the weighty contemplation of the righteousness of destiny brings out the prolonged agony that no one can touch, hear, or explain, however deeply entrenched in everyone’s heart. It will not be replaced with a different kind of choice of which freedom we seem to govern.
T
T is after R. Wait, it isn’t. It actually comes after S. OPQ, RST. Yes, someone told me
this when I was 7. T leads therefore my memory back to the vanished area of my
childhood where I learned T also came after D. That’s correct, T also comes after D, I
learned this before I was 5.
Those easy years were flowing in the streets and lanes of Changsha under the gentle
sun of spring. It can be brutal too, sometimes. The sun burns the city in mid-summer.
I saw dust rise and shimmer in the air and dogs left in rusty cages to cry. They spoke
“ Bo,Po,Mo,Fo,De,Te,Ne,Le” to me.
“ Bo,Po,Mo,Fo,De,Te,Ne,Le”, I repeated after them, as if I was a first grader in
primary school. They lived at the cross of Nanyang Street and Changkang Road till
the end of June 2000, when the heat waves were about to blow away everything.
In 2ooo, I moved to the opposite side of Wuyi Square. And my grandparents left the
apartment they had lived in for ten years. Since then the city began its long march of
transformation. I no longer walked in the old Nanyang street with the sun gently
glistening through tree leaves, dappling on the ground.
T didn’t come after anything, in the years of urban vicissitudes. In the word
“transformation”, T stands in the very beginning.
Poems written by me for the performance "Rivers"
Grandma
外婆不是从来都是七十的
Grandma wasn’t always seventy
她也有五十岁
She had her days of fifties
六十多的光景
and sixties too
她的头发常年乌青
Her hair was dark all year round
薄薄的一层
a thin layer
贴在阴天瓦片缝漏出的光里
carried by the light leaking through
the tile seams on a cloudy day
外婆不是从来
Grandma wasn’t
都是七十的
always seventy
她未曾想到
She’d never thought
八年后
eight years later
某个日常的夜晚
on an ordinary night
会走到生命对面的那堵墙
she would walk to the wall across life
死亡是门
Death is a gate
他们说
they said
而我的表妹
And my cousin
会在电话的另一端
on the other end of the phone
向我们
would pass
传达这个消息
the message to us
外婆在门外徘徊
Grandma was wandering outside the gate
她想：
She thought:
“我坐在废墟里
“I sat in the ruins
高墙上
on high walls
在我来不及告别的晚年
in my later years before I could say goodbye
我的外孙女和她
my granddaughter
正在读高中时的自己
who was in high school
与我共度院子里的一匹晚霞”
shared the sunset glow with me in the yard”
她也未曾想到
She had never thought either, that
在一个屈伦博赫的雨天
on a rainy day in Culemborg
中部的季节
in the season of the central land
昨日的日头下
under yesterday’s sun
草坪前
in front of the lawn
会被外孙女写进雨天
she would be written about by her granddaughter into
开着的台灯里
the light of a lamp on a rainy day
It was a small city
太阳昨日归北
The sun returned to the north yesterday
白昼燎原
The day ignites the land
日光响亮如同刹那
The sunlight is as loud as a flash
流年似静谧的歌声
Fleeting time is quiet singing
藏在窗后
hidden behind the window
静待命运的临门
awaiting fate to visit
正午过境
Noon swings by
在地上投下一块黑影
casting a shadow on the ground
时间凝固成糖
Time solidifies into sugar
消解往日的情仇
resolving past feuds
那时的荒滩有雨
It was raining on the barren beach
三两的日子
Scattered days
淹没的岸
Flooded shore
酒在季节里发霉
Wine molds in the season
雨来为潮
The rain brings tides
平分白天黑夜
dividing day and night
原来的夏季
In the old summer
天，没有这么长
days weren’t as long
那时城小
The city was small
仲夏当街
Mid summer in the street
灰尘渺若星芒
dust was as fine as the light of a star
炊烟穿行于巷尾
Cooking smoke traveled through the alleys
你举起一根烟
You held up a cigarette
在街头
in the street
然后祈祷于额前
and prayed on your forehead
日升月落
The sun rose and the moon fell
灯火沾染些风
Street lamps caught winds
尾巷随烟
Alleys followed smoke
升在陆地的
rising on the other end
另一边，围成
of the continent, forming
四面的雾
fogs on all sides
泊在
moored
今晨的河
on the river of this morning
白日当空
It is daytime
响午旷阔无边
The noon is boundless
河口如风
The river mouth blows towards
吹往四海
the four seas like wind
纵使夹道幽然
Although the path is secluded and tranquil
你的祷告也随烟
your prayer follows the smoke as well
流年似水入海
Time flows into the sea
推开无垠的岸
unfurling the infinite shore
日头如洗
The sunlight is bright as if being washed
暴晒之下
Under the blazing sun
时光更为彰显
time is more evident
Now it is 10’o clock
夜深了
It is late at night
戴上眼镜
put on your glasses
走进一片纸里
walk into a piece of paper
长条的货轮
A long freighter
与我
strolls
漫步
with me
灯顶的绿光
The green light from the lamp top
闪烁着
flickers
三角的翅膀
triangular wings
河岸是横切的酱色
The river bank is brown, a cross-section
植物在
Plants
白夜里疯长
grow wildly in the white night
像
like
金鱼的尾巴
a goldfish’s tail
倒挂
upside down
寂静穿巡，列车
Silence patrols
的每一节车厢
each carriage of the train
飞过河面
flying over the river
和人们的孤单
and people’s lonely
梦呓
somniloquy
在深蓝里
in deep blue
拉开一道道明黄
pulling streaks of bright yellow
桥，是河上
The bridge is a bow
安放的弓
resting on the river
在暧昧里
in ambiguity
承载着
bearing
来去的自由
the freedom to come and go
天黑的时候
When it is dark
在草坪上
gallop
疾行
on the lawn
西北有个缺口
There is a gap in the northwest
太阳，就
The sun just
落在了那里
fell there
风染了色素
Winds are stained with pigments
所以 天边
so the horizon
是一幅红光
is a frame of red glow
我想象，冬天的风
I imagine the wind of winter
往里倒灌
pours in
小河，小草流向远方
rivers and grass flow far away
2019, written in the hall of the Eye
我又到这了，在身边的粤语老歌飘然入耳的情节里，显得有些昏茫。 而此时北京遥远的寒夜，在北新桥地铁站的不远处和交道口东大街的街口，我初次的经验里，运转着夏季轻柔的阳光，梧桐叶间的漏影和风。我轻微的搬迁和亘古的变迁在必然的重叠里，身处于时代的浪潮，被看似自我选择而不得已的个人意愿推向远方。于是直到此刻，我见证了许多人的眼泪。在土儿胡同小区大门口经过的柏油路上，护栏旁数年前空荡的脚步声在东半球坚实的寒夜里仍啪啪作响。这个时候，我的对岸不过是部分城市横向的剪影，而在我身处的黄金大厅里和我不曾明白的方言起伏中，在人声和与外界轻薄如纸的维系里，我的遐想打了一个长远的哈欠。
2017，3月12
我又来到了那个温暖潮湿的夜，压抑不安与梦中惊醒的，尽管我知道，我已身在永久以后了。我活在一个阳光灿烂的季节，耳边的笑声，德语，把遥远的记忆带到了北极星。在满星北斗的地方，看到第一次的银河在夜空里飘荡。记得在那个夜里，盛夏的八月末，秋末伸手可触之时，我仰望着星河，流动的。我的人生也随之在可触摸的夜色如水里，漫漫散开。 犹如我的声音，我的宣誓与效忠，在漫山遍野里，草原上，大海的另一边浸润开来。我想我是那为数不多的看不到，永在梦境的银河。我温热的血液在早年永恒盛夏的那个夜晚孤单无尽，流淌在沉默无言的犯罪现场，我的心绪像一把破旧的弓，吱呀地发出声音，它说“送我回家吧，那个触手可及的地方”
我的思绪便因此随着歌声，伴着今日的阳光与那晚的阴郁，穿过了一条条胡同，丝瓜藤和早春干燥的雾霾。 我想象着初秋早年的那扇红月亮，天花板赤裸的舞女与仙鹤在我脑海里不断盘旋。那些都是过去了，我久远不可复述的怀念。 我知道这样的夜晚很多，在无尽的星空里，在我泥泞的脚下，土地里，化作我的愤怒与不安，创伤和多年过后仍旧无言的脆弱。我只是变得越发不同了，那个盛夏永恒的夜晚还是不停地造访，在我单次的梦境里与后背的恐惧与惊心中，在我焦虑的洗礼里，它带着温柔的笑容远远地向我挥手示好。 它说“再见吧，一切都结束了”