Life in poetry

Poet Ya Hsien's poem "Red corn"

In the years of the last emperor the wind kept blowing

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The writing dream of a blind youth

blowing on a string of red corn

It was actually right beneath the eaves

that it was hung

as if the whole North

the sadness of the whole North

were hanging there

Recalling those afternoons when we played truant

snow had chilled the private schoolmaster's ruler

my cousin's donkey was tied beneath the mulberry tree

Recalling the time when the suona began to sound

and the Taoist priests kept chanting

Grandfather's spirit had not yet returned from the capital

Recalling the cricket's calabash stacked away in the padded jacket

a tiny bit of cold, a tiny bit of warmth

and the copper hoops rolling over the knoll

in the distance we saw grandma's buckwheat field

and burst into tears

It was actually that kind of red corn

that was hanging there for a long long time

right beneath the eaves

when the wind was blowing, in the years of the last emperor

You will never understand

that string of red corn

the way it was hanging there

and its color

not even my daughter who was born in the South will understand

not even Verhaeren

Recalling the present

I have already grown old

strings of red corn are hanging

under the eaves of memory

the winds of 1958 will keep blowing

strings of red corn will keep hanging there.

-Translated by N.G.D. Malmqvist

The original Chinese version:

宣統那年的風吹著

吹著那串紅玉米

它就在屋檐下

掛著

好像整個北方

整個北方的憂郁都掛在那兒

猶似一些逃學的下午

雪使私塾先生的戒尺冷了

表姊的驢兒就拴在桑樹下面

猶似嗩吶吹起

道士們喃喃著

祖父的亡靈到京城去還沒有回來

猶似叫哥哥的葫蘆兒藏在棉袍里

一點點凄涼，一點點溫暖

以及銅環滾過崗子

遙見外婆家的蕎麥田

便哭了

就是那種紅玉米

掛著，久久地

在屋檐底下

宣統那年的風吹著

你們永不懂得

那樣的紅玉米

它掛在那兒的姿態

和它的顏色

我底南方出生的女兒也不懂得

凡爾哈侖也不懂得

猶似現在

我已老邁

在記憶的屋檐下

紅玉米掛著

一九五八年的風吹著

紅玉米掛著