Ouyang Yu #15 - 'On a far journey'

On a far journey

Written in Chinese by Ouyang Yu

Self-translated into English by Ouyang Yu

Before I set out on a far journey again

I put together

Bundles of those

Magazines that carry my poems

Those

Poetry collections that I have read

But don’t want to read again, wishing neither to translate them

Nor to put down my thoughts about them

And those

New books that I can’t sell

And don’t want

To give away for free

In a big box

Some of them

I can’t decide

If I want to take back

Such as the two new collections of poetry in English translation

I got published last year

Or the other two

On arts, literature and translation

Being torn between two countries

Is harder than between two women

As all one’s time

Has turned into journeys

And all one’s journeys

Into money

With one tossed in between

In the shape of a cloud

That has drifted to the edge of the skies

Oh, my aching heart

And there’s no one to tell about it

Now it occurs to me that those

Magazines

Will remain as rubbish

In the heap of odds and ends

One won’t be bothered with again

Once taken home

How can life be such a tug of war

But, then again, one doesn’t want to die

In a country

This unlucky

《远行》

欧阳昱

即将又要远行

我把那些

发表了诗歌的杂志

那些

看过之后不想再看

不想翻译

也不想写心得体会的诗集

那些

我卖不出去

也不愿意送人的新书

拢到一起

堆成几堆

放进大箱子里

有些书

我无法决定

是否带回去

如我去年出版的

那两部新英译诗集

那两本

谈艺、谈文、谈翻译的书

在两个国家之间扯着

比两个女人还难

所有的时间

都化作旅程

所有的旅程

都化作钱

而人在之间

抛来抛去

形如一片飘到

天边的云

心痛啊

又无人诉说

现在想起来，那些

杂志

即使拿回去

也只能像垃圾一样

堆在杂物堆里

从此不再光顾

生命，怎么能如此拔河

但我又不想死在

一个如此不幸

之国