...

Yang Zongze - Two Poems

Cutting Wheat

1.

Wheat is ripe

The ripe wheat is a sort of temptation

More attractive than female stars’ towering breasts

I cannot resist that sort of temptation

And walk into the cornfield

To get in a kind of traditional hope

With sickles

Together with my fellow countrymen

 

Whenever in the early morning

Or at the burning hot noon

We cut wheat with the same posture

That posture is very graceful

Seemingly like embracing our wives or sweethearts from behind

That posture is quite ancient

Which can be traced back to the Iron Age

That posture is very die-hard

Which remains as before for several thousand years

However, up to today no one has had it become a kind of culture

By abstracting it from common things  

 

2

The wheat in the city is ripe

The wheat in the city always gets ripe one or two days later

Than the wheat in the countryside 

 

The wheat in the city grows on the TV screen

So the poets in the city

Begin to cut wheat on the TV screen

 

The poet in the city is quick-minded

They can put that colorful image into lines at any instant

Which will soon appear in the evening paper or morning paper

With the remuneration

They buy lipsticks for their wives or sweethearts

The lipstick is as red as 

The blood bleeding out of my fingers kissed by the sickle

 

3.

The posture of cutting wheat

Is a kind of posture jointly created by man and sickle

It has nothing to do with walking along a boulevard

It has nothing to do with the pleated skirt waving gracefully

It has nothing to do with the birdcage or fish jar on the balcony

It has nothing to do with dancing while singing like mad in the nightclub

It has nothing to do with the eyes gazing at each other in a music teahouse

 

The posture of cutting wheat is graceful and moving

It always stands together with hunger and man’s mouth

                           ..

June 1989

...

Kite

 

1

Each kite

is a yearning

It is the kite-sender’s yearning for the blue sky

It is the kite-sender’s yearning for white clouds

It is the kite-sender’s yearning for spring and freedom

 

2

Each kite

is a dream

This dream came up limping

from the primeval days

But today, in human’s palm

it 

    is

       still

            tottering

 

3

Each kite

is a bird

This bird has just broken through

the bonds of the birdcage

While is kept watching closely

by a merciless string

 

I implore the kite-sender

to loosen your grip -----

Since it is called kite

Let it fly

comparing with the sky, the clouds, the wind and rain

in height or strength

...

       Apr. 2001

Translated from Chinese into English by the author

...

...

...

About the author Yang Zongze： born in Feb. 1953; a poet and translator， a native of Pingdu City, Shandong Province; graduated from Shandong Normal University. senior teacher；member of China Writers Association. Since 1983, more than 2,600 pieces of his poems, prose, critical essays on literature and works of poetry translation have appeared in nearly 80 newspapers and literary periodicals both at home and abroad. Part of his poems, prose and poetry translation works have been recorded in over 50 kinds of selections of literary works. His biography has been recorded in some important dictionaries such as Who’s Who and A Grand Dictionary of Chinese Writers. In Dec. 1999 he was chosen as “The Best Translator of the Year 1999” by (US) IWA. He has published 32 books including My Romantic Season (a collection of poems) and collections of poetry translation such as Short Poems of He Jingzhi; Selected Poems of Jidi Majia; Time and Selected Poems of Emmanuel MAHIEU.