(1963– )
Born Liu Jun in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, Xi Chuan graduated from Peking University with a degree in English in 1985. He worked as an editor for various magazines, including the literary journal Tendency (1988–91). In the wake of the Tiananmen crackdown and after the death of his two poet friends (Hai Zi and Luo Yihe) in 1989, Xi Chuan stopped writing for three years. He is currently a professor at China Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.
On the Other Side of the River
on the other side of the river
there is a flame
a flame
having burnt May
now burning August
when the pagoda tree blooms, the freckled old professor bows to her
when orange blossoms fall, a debonair heir waves and smiles to her
yet she remains burning
on the other side of the river
like red coral dazzling underwater
like a red straw hat
blown away by wind
yesterday when I saw her
she was looking to the sky
standing still
and today she lowers her head
watching the water
if it’s overcast or raining
what will she do
on the other side of the river?
—her flame won’t go out
a poet sees her
a peasant sees her
a Marxist sees her
she’s on the other side of the river, burning
having burnt May
now burning August
a blackout, convincing me
I live in a developing country
a country where people read by moonlight
a country that abolished imperial exams
a blackout, letting me hear
wind chimes and a cat’s crawl upstairs
a running motor dies with a thud in the distance
the battery-powered radio still sings by my side
with every blackout, time turns back quickly:
candles lit in a little eatery
the fatso devouring crow meat
finds crows crowding the limbs of a tree
and the pitch-black before me
so much like the womb of a surging sea
a mother hangs herself on a beam
to each room belongs a scent of its own
a blackout. I fish out a slipper
but mutter: “Quit hiding, matches!”
in the candlelight I see myself
a giant wordless shadow cast upon the wall
for Akhmatova
there in a dream is a snowfield
there in the snowfield is a white birch
there a small house about to resound in prayer
there a shingle about to fall off the North Star
far away
there a crowd of people green as cabbage
there a pot of hot water drunk up by beasts
there a wooden chair sunk in recollection
there a desk lamp representing me in illumination
far away
a sheet of glass scrawled in words I can’t read
a white page overgrown with soybeans and sorghum
a face forces me to drop my pen
picking it up again, I find the ink frozen
far away
December’s wandering clouds rise from treetops
my soul’s train in the cold stops
I see me treading a bleak road
coughing thrice at a woman’s door
(Translated by Yunte Huang)