Gone Missing

By Bai Hua

...One day I will answer.
One day when I am dead and can at last concentrate. Or at least so far
away from here that I can find myself again.
---TOMAS TRANSTRÖMER "Answers to Letters"

Epigraph:Did Rilke write from Château de Muzot? Zhang Zao wrote from Trier...

When  young, I liked to loiter in mini market at dusk...
Watching dazzling shops, people disappear in crowd...
My life, per se, often brushes past with the human world---

When  young, I was also a letter writting fanatic, 20 letters per night...
Mistaking day with night, letters came and went...there's just one of them,
by the time I read it, thirty-seven years and eight days had passed---
Body temperature still keeping? Still breathing? That Australian still there?!

This New Year's Day, elegy has died in years, post office disappeared as a newspaper.
"Another letter, the stationery is blank, blank. You were sound asleep like an orange..."

January 24, 2015/ translated by Chen Zihong

Translator's note:
1. The citation taken from Tomas Tranströmer "Answers to Letters", English translated by Robin Fulton
2. The last line is from Zhang Zao's famous poem Elegy.

诗人简介：柏桦（1956-）中国当代著名诗人，西南交通大学艺术与传播学院教授。代表作《表达》、《往事》、《水绘仙侣》、《一点墨》

本诗英文译文及所附中文原诗已获作者授权，未经原作者和译者许可，谢绝任何转载及用于任何商业用途。

错过

有一天我将回答。那时我已死去，终于能集中思绪。
或至少远离这里，从而能够重新发现自己。
——特朗斯特罗姆《对一封信的回答》

里尔克从穆佐来信了吗？张枣从特里尔来信……——题记

年轻时我曾经喜欢在黄昏的小市闲逛……
观看琳琅夺目的店铺，人消失在人群里……
我的人生，常常就这样，与人间擦肩而过——

年轻时我也是写信狂，一夜写二十多封信……
日月颠倒，信来信去……，但有一封信，
我读到它时，三十七年零八天已经过去了——
它的体温还在？呼吸还在？那澳洲人还在？！

今年元旦，哀歌作古经年，邮局消失如报纸
“另一封信打开是空的，是空的，你熟睡如橘……”

                               2015年1月24日

注释一：最后一行出自张枣名诗《哀歌》。