Territory From Helan Mountains to Qin Mountains (Oh two miraculous mountains keeping out The northern gales and southern rains) From one massive boulder to another Across a roaring river And several quiet yet bizarrish rivers Deserts marshy grasslands jungles The height of a soaring bird of an eagle And the depth of a fish, a marmot and an earthworm It is my territory Horses’ territory The territory where my ancestors and their bones Rest like stones abandoned and scattered everywhere Where legends and fairy tales Thrive with an endless circle of life Just like wild grass and flowers I know this undulant earth’s this territory’s Once cherished self-esteem Is the gray quivering bristles and manes As sharp as daggers of a pack of dashing wolves I know the speed of omitting a lake in history by a desert I know the velocity of a stray dove Escaping in the firmament It has been accustomed to the azure blue inside the lake As well as the freshness of freshwater fish Nevertheless it hasn’t been adapted to The azure blue of the celestial arc The sad and shrill northwestern gales And the unbearably feeble flight With all its energy depleted Railroad tracks as close and dense as ribs National highways like layers after layers of bandages Wrapping a seriously injured person Growling and bellowing petroleum towers like giant monsters With searchlights able to rend the entire universe As to how some odd birds and their nests Mysteriously disappeared How a tomb-robbing gang with cast iron Luoyang shovels Shimmering gloomily yet ruthlessly in a lonesome valley Was raided by a swarm of cops Had their deaths coburied forever with underground white bones And thereby disappeared without a trace Today I am the man on horseback in quest of secrets The man driven to track the secrets The man digging thoroughly in the local area As if trespassing a strange land In an attempt to collect information
疆域
从贺兰山到秦岭
（向北挡风 向南挡雨的两座神山呵）
从巨石到巨石
越过一条咆哮的河流
和另外几条不咆哮但有些异样的河流
越过沙漠 草甸 丛林
飞鸟的高度 鹰的高度和鱼的深度
土拨鼠和蚯蚓的深度
是我的疆域
是马的疆域
是祖先和他们的尸骨
弃石一样散落在各处安息的疆域
是传说和神话野草野花般生生不息的疆域
我知道这跌宕起伏的大地 这疆域
它曾有的自尊是狼群在奔跑中
抖动尖如匕首的灰色鬃毛
我知道一座沙漠在历史中漏掉一个湖泊的速度
我知道一只遗鸥在天空中逃离的速度
它习惯了湖泊中的湛蓝
以及淡水鱼的鲜美 但它还不习惯
天空的湛蓝 西北风的凄厉
和体力耗尽之后软弱不堪的飞
肋骨一样密密匝匝的火车轨道 重伤者的
绷带一样缠了又缠的国家大道
石油钻塔巨怪似的隆隆轰鸣和可以撕裂整个宇宙的探照灯
而有关一些古怪的鸟和它的巢怎样秘密般地消失
一群盗墓贼的洛阳铁铲
在寂寞山谷中幽暗而残忍的闪闪寒光
被一群警察突袭
怎样把自己的死和地底的白骨永远合葬一处
从此杳无音讯
我是今天骑马追究秘密的人
我是乘车追踪秘密的人
我是像闯入异地一样深入本地
试图打探消息的人
Empty Train An empty train is traversing The vast expanse of Northern wilderness Valleys shrouded with tenebrosity And the bowels of clusters of peaks On the empty train only with two passengers In the absolutely empty North A man and a woman Witness in person a wild goat and a lynx outside Almost frightened to death by the headlights Running wild While remaining indifferent On the empty train with hollow coaches The two passengers having never met before Of unknown origin and to an unknown destination Have missed at the same time a roadside child Waving his greetings in the last village The empty train with completely blank lights Flashes by like a spectre Lighting up the face of the only child left in the North Daring to stand in the tenebrosity The two passengers stare vacantly ahead And have missed, at the moment When the darkness is illuminated That child and what’s behind him The spaciously deserted North
空列车
空列车在经过北方
广袤的旷野
经过被黑暗笼罩的山谷
和群峰的深处
只有两个乘客的空列车
和空空如也的北方
一个男人 一个女人
眼看着外面被探照灯险些吓坏的
一只野羊和一只山猫在狂奔
他们无动于衷
空荡荡的列车 空荡荡的车厢
两个素昧平生不知来历也不知所终的人
他们同时错过了 最后一个村庄
一个路边的孩子
曾经向着他们招手致意
空荡荡的列车 空空如也的灯光
像幽灵一样一闪而过
照亮了唯一一个留在北方
并敢于站在黑暗中的
孩子的脸庞
两个目光空洞的人望着前方
他们错过了黑暗被照亮的那一刻
那个孩子 和孩子身后
空荡荡的北方
CO-TRANSLATORS | CHEN DU is a voting member of the American Translators Association and an expert member of the Translators Association of China with a Master’s Degree in Biophysics from Roswell Park Cancer Institute, SUNY at Buffalo and a Master’s Degree in Radio Physics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In the United States and a few other Western countries, she has published 150+ pieces of English translations, poems, and essays in more than fifty literary journals. A set of five poems from Yan An’s poetry collection Rock Arrangement, which was co-translated by her and Xisheng Chen, won the 2021 Zach Doss Friends in Letters Memorial Fellowship. Yan An’s poetry book, A Naturalist’s Manor, translated by Chen Du and Xisheng Chen was published by Chax Press and shortlisted (one of four titles) for the 2022 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize, administered by the American Literary Translators Association. Contact her at of_sea@hotmail.com.
XISHENG CHEN, a Chinese American, is an ESL grammarian, lexicologist, linguist, translator and educator. His educational background includes: top scorer in the English subject in the National College Entrance Examination of Jiangsu Province, a BA and an MA from Fudan University, Shanghai, China (exempted from the National Graduate School Entrance Examination owing to excellent BA test scores), and a Mandarin Healthcare Interpreter Certificate from the City College of San Francisco, CA, USA. His working history includes: translator for Shanghai TV Station, Evening English News, lecturer at Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China, adjunct professor at the Departments of English and Social Sciences of Trine University (formerly Tri-State University), Angola, Indiana, notary public, and contract high-tech translator for Futurewei Technologies, Inc. in Santa Clara, California, USA. As a translator for over three decades, he has published many translations in various fields in newspapers and journals in China and abroad. He is also a freelance translator for JTG, Inc., Reston, VA for the translation project for the US Department of Justice. Contact him at james16881@yahoo.com.
POET | A prominent poet in contemporary China, YAN AN is the author of fifteen poetry books, including his most famous poetry collection, Rock Arrangement, which won him The Sixth Lu Xun Literary Prize, one of China’s top four literary prizes. The winner of various national awards and prizes, he is also a Vice President of the Poetry Institute of China, a Vice President of the Shaanxi Writers Association, a member of the National Committee of China Writers Association, and the head and Executive Editor-in-Chief of the literary journal Yan River, one of the oldest and most famous literary journals in Northwestern China. In English, his poetry book, A Naturalist’s Manor, translated by Chen Du and Xisheng Chen and published by Chax Press, was shortlisted (one of four titles) for the 2022 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize, administered by the American Literary Translators Association. The poems published here are from Yan An’s most famous book, Rock Arrangement, which was published by Shaanxi Publishing & Media Group (Taibai Literary Press) in 2013. At present, 76,000 copies of Rock Arrangement have been sold in China and the book has been printed three times in China.
