我想象我听到绿色，在樱桃树里穿针引线的声音 

英文诗/单小月 中文翻译/Alice Zheng

explain to me fate as if I were a child

how do things come up to be next 

to one another. streets with no names

pressed poorly upon mountains, molasses

twilight holding the day, hip

pushed to hip during rush hour, 

and old photographs leaving yellow oil

upon the new. the city-bound flocking

above the river-water, the benevolent

laying her hands on the unforgivable,

the living light that eagerly tenderizes

the dying one. how does a child 

meet the future just so, 

how do sprouts meet their flowers, 

how do various evenings meet in the kitchen 

over broths and breads. how many pairs

of hands carried fruit to this bowl.

what rhythm of music led some eyes

from here, to a place a little more

dangerous. how did we come to be with 

one another, here as if enchanted, with 

no more reason than two grains of sand,

and no less intoxication than two winds,

infuriated by the distance 

they’ve both had to come. 

向我解释命运，像对一个孩子那样

事情如何一个接着一个出现。

无名街道勉强压在山头，

糖蜜色暮光扶着天，

屋脊推进屋脊，在高峰期间，

老相片留下黄色油脂

在新的上面。奔赴城市的鸟群

掠过河水上方，善者将她的手

搭在罪无可恕的人身上，

活着的光迫切着去温柔将死的。

一个孩子会如何遇见未来呢，

嫩苗如何碰到花朵，夜晚

如何就着厨房里的汤羹

碰到另一个夜晚。多少双手

将水果捧到这个碗里，

是什么音乐的旋律将目光

从此处引向更危险的远方。

我们又怎样来到对方身旁，

此刻宛如着魔，

比两粒沙的理由更少

比两束风的毒性更多

如何被激怒，被这距离

都需要经过的距离。

modals of lost opportunity

the bright-out day, the rebellion of cicada song,

you said this is one of the only places in tokyo

where geishas still live

your renegade smile

soldiering damp camellia. this moment

singular and bracketed, against all other moments.

august was a month

we measured in thunderstorm,

peeling skin from the grapevine days. 

I asked, when will we arrive? 

though I knew we weren’t going anywhere, but

still believing in perfect questions. 

sumida river had swelled

while we forgot to eat. asakusa,

a sheet of light, leaked molasses through the glass.

people are on their way to work when

you said, we’ll be there soon.

even though you weren’t coming.

even though we were standing on opposite sides 

of the room, asking about trips we would never take,

wishing for pointless, good, weather. 

the present ambers memory

into souvenir. when time argued against

merely happening, and sank deeply into shape.

bright day, cicadas, woody scent of camellia.

I thought, we are finding human ways

to kill.

the corpses of ourselves as in memory.

sumida river can’t tell itself from the rain.

minutes arrived as regularly as busses.

the hour came

without sitting down. hurry and shyness precise

in theatre.

I don’t want to follow, I want to change things.

but the script rises to my tongue 

and ignites. the seeming cascade of what can be said.

the light will go dark as the door closes. slowly,

slowly, fever, warfare, yet nothing arrests time

as love does.

错失机会的情态动词

白昼敞亮，蝉歌逆反

你说这是东京为数不多

仍有艺妓生活的地方

你叛徒的微笑

挥兵于潮湿的山茶花。这一刻

相对所有其他的时刻，

是单数形式的，括号里的。

八月是一个

我们用雷雨度量，

并从葡萄藤岁月里蜕皮的月份

我问，我们何时抵达？

尽管知道我们哪也不去，但

我依然相信美好的提问。

我们忘记吃饭的时候，

隅田川涨潮了。浅草，

一面光，糖浆般渗过玻璃。

人们赶去上班时，你说，

我们马上就到，

尽管你并不会来。

尽管你我在房间两边各自站着，

询问我们决不会去的旅行，

期盼无意义的好天气。

当下将回忆封印成

纪念品。当时间反驳

仅仅发生本身，并沉塑成形。

天气明朗，蝉响，山茶花有木质香。

我想，我们在寻找人类的方式

杀死

记忆里我们自己的尸体。

隅田川无法从雨中分辨出它自己。

分钟像公交车一样规律地到来。

小时到来，

并没有坐下。匆忙、羞怯

表演精湛。

我不想跟从，我想改变。

然而剧本浮上嘴边，

点燃。台词似乎倾泻而出。

灯光和门一起关上了。慢慢地，

慢慢地，发烧，战争，

没有什么比爱更能囚禁时间。

how often I have chosen love

how often I have chosen love

in the chestnut of november

when the night cracks open and is yellow

the dusk lifts the city up towards mid-air

how it stays there

pendulating and trembling

grasped in the palm-sized wind

daily how I have chosen the lemon tree

hanging over the slatted rooftop

and tatami shade 

copper-colour, time-stoned

every shape of the moon having made

itself upon it 

bearing fruit

such heavy living fruit

to be picked by no one

how every rained-in morning

spoke itself in unison

just as I have chosen to meet it

and all the distance was electric

pretty girls standing paled

roman windows spun with wire

along the circle paths of daikanyama

river pebbles

how I have chosen to love a city

that takes from other cities

the whole of tokyo a lockbox

overflown with photos of flowers

passing the bike rack by nakameguro station

upon which miki had brushed her hair

and taught me dirty words in japanese

few leaves clinging 

I imagined I heard the sound green made

threading the cherry trees

how often I have chosen the sumida

and the sight from the middle 

standing on the red bridge looking

at the blue bridge 

as a man pours half a bottle of whiskey

into the river and it whirled

inward like a handprint

should I mention the fingernail moon

how I had once boarded a train to ibaraki

and peeled mandarin oranges 

until citrus drowned the stale air

I watched heels dig perfect circles

into the snow and seedlings shot up

from where precisely they had stood

it was easy to imagine

what could be watercolour

a painted moment otherwise gone

saved for later

names of people do not come as easily

as the names of rivers

at the photographic museum I saw

a flock of birds all rise at once 

save for one who nailed

a piece of the ground underneath him

how often we sat by the heating lamp

smoking our different cigarettes

as their tails drew non-figures upward

we read them as symbols

you did not look at me at first and then

you looked at me 

my hand was painted into the dim

in yanaka the trees grew into houses

and we did not spend too much time thinking

about who lived here before

how clouds turned into gold once

they touched the ground in shinjuku

how lightbulbs shed their cloud-glow

upon those who kissed under them

ikegami: in the mute plum garden 

combed through whitely 

by generations of hands 

starlight is vivified when reflected

off the skin of a plum

how I had walked 

on music shed by passersby careless

leaving strings of words dangling

handed to me adjacently

from both sides

even sometimes laughter

even sometimes ginger flowers

passed over and I took them

the acquiescing light tied around

wild-pink buildings 

by some hand wishing

I take it a sign of my good youth

that I am still enraptured by sunsets

how I was taught the right way to pray

with a ten yen coin 

by someone who loved me

up an uncountable number of stairs

the jagged papers spun

as though the forces of our shadows

inhumanly elongated

ruffled the hems of a spiritdom

there were three anonymous flowers

growing from the stone

how often fresh figs were cracked

against the concrete linings in toyama-koen

capsuled in droplets of lilac sun

their sweet smell

how often I have chosen love

upon this ground every block charted

by prodigal feet, by unnamed rulers

in the onset of winter a cartography emerges

a heart startles heavy 

traffic blindly intersecting

in tokyo where there is no patience

after having chosen

我曾多少次选择爱

我曾多少次选择爱

在栗色的十一月

当夜晚劈开露出黄色

黄昏将城市抬至半空

它停在那里

摇摆，颤抖

攥在巴掌大的风中

每天我是怎样选择那棵柠檬树

悬在屋顶交错的木条

和榻榻米的阴影上

黄铜色，被时间石化

月亮每个形状都曾在上面

留下它自己

果实累累

如此沉重鲜活的果实

无人采撷

每一个下进雨的早晨

怎样齐声讲述它自己

正如我选择迎接它

然后所有距离充满电力

美丽女孩苍白伫立

罗马窗上拧着铁丝

代官山环形的路

镶满河卵石

我是怎样选择爱一座

拿取其它城市的城

整个东京一个保险箱

溢满了花的照片

经过中目黑站的单车架

美纪曾在上面梳头发

并教我日语里的脏话

不剩几片叶子了

我想象我听到绿色

在樱桃树里穿针引线的声音

我曾多少次选择隅田川

和站在它中央的红桥上

望向蓝桥的景象

一个男人把半瓶威士忌

抛向河里它向内旋转着

就像一个手印

我该提起指甲盖一样的月亮吗

我曾登上一辆去往茨城的火车

不停地剥橘子

直到柑橘味淹没陈旧的空气

我看过高跟鞋在雪地里

挖出完美的圆幼苗

就在那里发芽

不难想象

什么能够构成水彩画

一个不上好颜色便会消失的时刻 

留给以后

人名不如河流的名字

容易唤起

在摄影博物馆我看见

一群鸟一齐起飞

除了钉在

它脚下土地的那一只

我们曾多少次坐在暖灯边

抽不同的烟

烟头朝上画出非物

我们像符号一样解读它

起初你没有看我然后

你看向我

我的手被涂进暗影

在谷中树长成房屋

我们没有多想

谁曾住在这里

云曾怎样变成金色

抚摸新宿的土地

灯泡怎样在亲吻的人们头顶

发出云的光

池上：寂静的梅园

被世世代代的手

梳得洁白

星光照在梅子上

有了呼吸

我是怎样走在

行人粗心落下的音乐里

一串串字句悬荡着

被从两旁递给我的

有时甚至有欢笑声

有时甚至有野姜花

递给我我便收下

默许的光

被一些手祈愿着

系在艳粉色的楼上

夕阳仍令我狂喜

我把这看作年轻的证据

一个爱我的人怎样

用十日元教会我

正确的祈祷方式

锯齿状的纸片转着

飞过无数级台阶

好像我们影子的力

被无情地拉长

拨乱了灵界的褶边

石头里开出

三朵匿名的花

新鲜无花果曾多少次

在户山公园的水泥墙上被敲开

它们甜蜜的气味

装在一滴滴丁香色的阳光里

我曾多少次选择爱

在这片土地每一寸

都曾被浪子的脚和无名统治者丈量

地图浮现在冬天伊始

一颗心惊得沉重

在东京车流盲然纵横

作出选择后就再没有耐心

Shan Xiaoyue,  Poet and editor, winner of the Frontier Poetry Chapbook Prize and was published in the Spring of 2019, co-Editor-in-Chief of the Beijing-based Spittoon Literary Magazine, Art Director and Editor at Tokyo Poetry Journal, Blog Editor at Asymptote Journal, and Poetry Editor at Cicada. 

单小月，英语诗人与编辑，生于中国东营，现居温哥华岛。她的诗集《我选择爱情的频率》（2019）获得了Frontier Poetry Chapbook Prize；诗集《然后告诉是解药》获 Tupelo Press Berkshire Prize，将于2022年出版。她是英语文学杂志《Spittoon Literary Magazine》的主编，《Tokyo Poetry Journal》的艺术总监和编辑，《渐近线文学季刊》英文版的博客编辑与《Cicada》诗刊的诗歌编辑。她的个人网站为：shellyshan.com。单小月是本次重音诗歌奖单元D 重音新声奖组的评委。