Ya Xian (Ya Hsien, “mute strings”) is the pen name of Wang Qinglin, who was born in Nanyang, He’nan Province. He joined the military and moved to Taiwan in 1949. After graduating from Cadre Academy, where he majored in drama, he served in the navy. In the 1960s Ya Xian was invited to the International Writing Program at University of Iowa and later earned an M.A. from University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has been the chief editor of the Epoch Poetry Quarterly, Young Lion Literature and Art, and, for many years, the literary supplement of the United Daily. He is retired and divides his time between Taiwan and Canada.
Ya Xian had a meteoric writing career. He started writing poetry in the 1950s, reached the zenith of creativity in 1957–60, and stopped writing completely in 1965. The brevity of this period, however, affects neither his status nor his influence as a major poet in Taiwan and, indeed, in modern Chinese poetry as a whole.
An umbrella and I
And heart disease
And autumn
I walk holding my roof over my head
Droplets make dampening remarks
Jump about on this domed roof
Having no song to sing
Even in autumn
Even with heart disease
Having no song to sing
Two frogs
Held by the split-open soles of my shoes
Sing out with each step I take
Although they sing for now
I have nothing to sing about
Umbrella and I
And heart disease
And autumn
(1956)
(translated by Denis Mair)
Far far away
by a bleak and desolate shore
the Big Dipper reaches down its ladle to fetch water
presenting it to Night
to brew into dark port wine
Night
bids the wings of a bat
to carry the wine to the Village God
In tiny bowls before the censer
in the shallow earthenware jar
the wine keeps making a fuss
waiting for someone to come and drink it
But the wasps keep complaining
(their home is too cramped)
living as they are in the Village God’s ear
What the little squirrels love most of all is to eat
any old candle ends they may steal in the Shrine
The wine calabash mutters in the grass
what kind of poet is he
who doesn’t drink wine
the wine keeps making a fuss
the Village God silently smiles a bitter smile
(he has smiled like that for several hundred years by now)
ever since that day
no single drop of wine has moistened his beard
ever since the Village God’s wife
died in the wind
died in the rain
died under the naughty scythe of the boy cutting grass
(1957)
(translated by N.G.D. Malmqvist)
Vultures take flight from behind the church
Flowers have been placed about our necks
(Mama, why won’t you come?)
Boys trim whiskers for the last time
Girls put on their last dab of rouge
There will be no more going to dances
Cane gripped in the hand will tap earth no longer
Light and shade cavort no more across glasses on the nose
Nor lavender kerchiefs enwrap sweet strawberries on excursions
(Mama, why won’t you come?)
The “Desideratum” beneath the pillow
Takes too much strength to read a second time
The secret of life is secreted after all
In this long, pitch-black, wooden box
Will spring come tomorrow?
We ride a litter to the crossroads
To see what scenery we might see
Will tomorrow be our birthday?
We wear clothes of such fine white silk
Hearts skip as the boatman rows to grandmother’s bridge
Yet vultures take flight behind the church
What is the pastor’s pipe organ weeping about?
What are the nuns chanting in a drone?
(Mama, why won’t you come?)
How nice that she promised to plant for us
A little alder tree on Memorial Day,
I do not love that rustling sound
So terribly forlorn and all.
Ugh! What is wriggling in the sockets of my eyes?
Why do worms have to get involved?
Besides, there are no tears for them to drink
(Mama, why won’t you come?)
(1957)
(translated by Denis Mair)
The hunting horns have shaken down last year’s pine cones
the plank road rumbles under the hooves of the pilgrims’ donkeys
when the melting snow streams like silver threads from the spinning wheel of the Weaver Maid
the Shepherd Boy sharpens his new scythe on the stone Buddha’s toes
Spring, ah, spring
under the bodhi tree I feed a traveling stranger’s horse
The outcrops breathe hard under layers of stone
the sun sets the forest on fire
when the old hag Malaria hobbles away to the little inn to peddle her bitter apples
life leaks from the red eye sockets of the weasel
Summer, ah, summer
I bang the rusty knocker against a sick man’s gate
Rustic songs clown around in the baskets on the peasant girls’ backs
with crying voices the wild geese beg the clouds to wait
when the decrepit evening sun brushes away his golden beard to suck the persimmons in the grove
even the red leaves are large enough to hold all four lines of a quatrain
Autumn, ah, autumn
on the misty river I help a fisherman cast his net
The woodcutter’s axe sings in the deep valley
frightened stiff, the wild cat in the deserted village hides in the old peasant woman’s sleeve
when the north wind whistles in the chimney
old men in leather boots lined with sedge whip their tops on the frozen pond
Winter, ah, winter
together with a beggar I warm myself by a brazier beneath a cracked bell in an old temple
(1957)
(translated by N.G.D. Malmqvist)
Plantain juice washes the princess’s hair
a silver chain fetters the parrot to its peg
golden pheasants are left to pace the cold tiles of the palace roof
white leopard skins cover the marble floors of the corridors
I am a dark-skinned slave girl
Frightened awake by horses’ hooves, the scolded earth at the border
listens to sad complaints of faraway sister nations over broken promises
blinded prisoners of war shackled in stone reliefs
in the winter evening ward off the shifting sand with their shields
I am a bleeding foot soldier
Pour port wine on the scaffolds of date wood
fill the beggar’s iron bowl with gold coins
add oil to the copper lamps on the altars of the gods
light torches on the Star Terrace to call back the star of the Swan that has lost its way
I am a white-headed sacrificial priest
The prince cools his lean shoulders with a palm-leaf fan
bloody toeprints sink into the long paved alley
like an antelope yearning for fresh cool water
a palanquin just now passes the fountain
I am a carrier shouting to disperse the crowd
All wailing will have to wait until tomorrow
today we have work to do
(1957)
(translated by N.G.D. Malmqvist)
Oh, Lord, the suona* has already sounded
Winter is as empty as the sleeve of a man who has lost one arm
dark and endlessly heavy
Oh, Lord
Let us on the sundial see
the shadow of your gown
let us on the tips of the grass
on the tender pistil of the violet
seek your bloody footprints
We also long to hear your new songs
streaming from the twelve stops of the wooden flute
from the dialogue of wind and sea
Oh, Lord, the suona has already sounded
let the white sprites
(they have knitted a woolen winter cap for the mountaintop)
from the rivers, from the creeks
return to their old homes by the lake
Give the young boys a grass slope where they can roll their copper hoops
Give the young girls a piece of dry ground where they can spin their tops
command your sun, oh Lord
to descend on the old woman’s stick with dragon-head handle
warmed by your rays
Oh, Lord
spread fresh flowers on the road that the sedan chair has passed
moisten their lips with the juice of fragrant grass
let them kiss each other
Do not build ferries for those who have none
let them test the temperature of your rivers
let also thorns, thistles, and jujube trees
prick them, that they may feel a sweet pain
The suona has begun to sound, oh Lord
place your voice on our vocal cords
when we draw
the tasseled curtain of the sedan chair
and find Spring seated inside
(January 1957, after reading Rilke)
(translated by N.G.D. Malmqvist)
The cuckoo was calling, in the woods
calling like a haiku
that year Spring was in the low grass
musicians, three-stringed lutes, folding fans
ah, happy Spring
(she waited for me in Luoyang
waited for me in the buckwheat field)
calling, like a haiku
the cuckoo in the woods
The jasmine was blooming in the park
blooming like a pointillist painting
that year Spring was in Paris
the Seine, old bookstalls, Hugo ah, a beautiful Spring
(she waited for me in Luoyang
waited for me in the buckwheat field)
blooming, like a pointillist painting
the jasmine in the park
The raven was perching on the Cross
perching like Edgar Allan Poe
that year Spring was in Kentucky
red soil, stagecoaches, Valley of the Dead
ah, a sad Spring
(she waited for me in Luoyang
waited for me in the buckwheat field)
perching like Edgar Allan Poe
the raven on the Cross
(1957)
(translated by N.G.D. Malmqvist)
Catching sight of the lights on the western shore of Luzon
recalls memories of our gray buddies over there
happily sharpening their teeth
In Manila there are a great many bakeries
The year was 1954
there once was a black girl
who swapped a kiss for half a walnut kernel
She now lives in the cubbyhole where sails and ropes are kept
looking after the children
dreaming, the swell of the sea her pillow
she doesn’t care much for a housewife’s chores
The Chinese captain was rather opposed to that marriage
even though I promised never again to chew the pockets of his Western suit
or the red spines of his logbooks
My wife always says that we were smart to have escaped that time
perhaps we no longer have to fear the cat
But I say, what’s even worse
are those reefs
that we know about
but the captain doesn’t
But of course, we needn’t worry about which way the wind will blow tomorrow
as long as we can sharpen our teeth today
(August 12, 1957, on board a ship outside northern Luzon)
(translated by N.G.D. Malmqvist)
I wonder what it’ll be like when spring has arrived
what’ll the snow be like
the robin and the puppies, when spring has arrived
what’ll they be like then
As before, the temple of the God of War
as before, washed socks will be hung to dry on the long-shafted spears
as before, a beggars’ jingle here, a beggars’ jingle there
jujube tree, jujube tree
the sun that belongs to us all will shine, shine
on that jujube tree
But what’s most important is
that I don’t have a single copper
to give to my memories, as crushed as dead lice
to give to my straw sandals, worn out by the streets
to give to my desire of slaughter
hidden among the battlements of my teeth
Each and every door is closed to me, when evening comes
people begin to love only the fences they have themselves built
it’s only the moonlight, the moonlight that has no fences
fills my broken old earthenware bowl with charitable milk, in the evening
when evening comes
Who has struck his own profile on the golden coin
(Yee-ya-ya! A beggar sings this)
Who has thrown his ceremonial tablet in the dust
(Yee-ya-ya! A beggar sings that)
Jujube tree, jujube tree,
the sun that belongs to us all will shine, shine
on that jujube tree
Spring, I wonder what it’ll be like when spring has arrived
the snow, the robin, and the puppies
and my knotty stick, will it bloom and
what’ll it be like when it does
(1957)
(translated by N.G.D. Malmqvist)
In the years of the last emperor the wind kept blowing
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
(1957)
(translated by N.G.D. Malmqvist)
Second Granny surely never met Dostoevsky. In spring she cried out only these words: “Salt, salt, give me a handful of salt!” Angels were singing in the elm tree. That year none of the sweet peas blossomed.
The Minister of Salt led a camel caravan by the edge of the sea seven hundred miles away. No seaweed had ever been reflected in Second Granny’s sightless eyes. She cried out only these words: “Salt, salt, give me a handful of salt!” Giggling angels shook snow down on her.
In 1911 Party* members entered Wuchang. But from the footbinding cloth hanging from the elm tree Second Granny doddered into the panting of wild dogs and the wings of vultures. Many voices drifted away on the wind: “Salt, salt, give me a handful of salt!” That year almost all the sweet peas put forth white blossoms. Dostoevsky never did meet Second Granny.
(1958)
(translated by Michelle Yeh)
An entire afternoon
spent sitting
under the patterned parasol of a macaroni stall
dressed in a shining jacket
the China Sea
waits for me beside the sole of my right shoe
Just as yesterday
having gotten up into the horse-drawn carriage, I ask myself:
where shall I go?
in this wind of blue satin
even sorrow is borrowed
But something, whatever it might be
must be hidden in between poverty and the life-prolonging chrysanthemum
In Palazzo degli Uffizi
Rafael is dying every minute
When I finally pass the bridge
I pull a blade of grass to chew on
trying hard to remember a face
and her expression when she ate a spring roll that year
(1958)
(translated by N.G.D. Malmqvist)
Jesus never once visited our monastery, but last autumn he walked as far as the other side of the pagoda. When he had listened to the sound of the beats on the wooden fish outside the meditation hall, to the voices of the nuns reciting the sutras, and to the murmur of the bodhi tree, he turned around and walked into the wilderness.
He was suddenly struck by the insight that this was China, the wilderness of China.
Those people, said Jesus, they simply have no idea where Jerusalem is. In their minds the Pharisees do not resemble the Huns. Poplars that grow here could never be carved into a beautiful cross, although—although the oats in the fields have the same kind of flowers.
That entire winter Jesus slept in Bethlehem, where he dreamed of dragons, dreamed of Buddha, dreamed of the Nestorian tablet, dreamed of lutes, of prickles and thorns, dreamed of dreamless dreams, dreamed that he never once visited our monastery.
(1958)
(translated by N.G.D. Malmqvist)
“I want to live, nothing else. At the same time I’ve discovered discontent.”
—Jean-Paul Sartre
Children often lose their way in your hair,
The first spring torrent, hidden behind your barren pupils.
Fragments of time shout. The body displays a carnival of the night.
In the venomous moonlight, in the delta of blood,
All souls stand erect, and pounce on the haggard face
Drooping on the cross.
This is absurd. In Spain
People wouldn’t even throw him a cheap wedding cookie!
Yet we observed mourning for all, spent the whole morning to touch a corner of his shirt.
Later his name was written on the wind, on a banner.
Later he cast us
Leftover life.
Go look, fake sadness, go smell putrid Time;
We are too lazy to know who we are.
Work, take a walk, salute the wicked, smile, and be immortal—
They are the ones who cling to mottos.
This is the face of the day; all the wounds whimper, teeming viruses hide beneath the skirts.
Metropolis, scales, paper moon, mutterings of power lines,
(Today’s notice pasted over yesterday’s notice)
The anemic sun trembles now and then
In the pale abyss
Sandwiched between two nights.
Time, Time with a cat’s face,
Time, strapped to the wrist, semaphoring.
On a rat-wailing night, those killed long ago are killed again.
They make bow ties with cemetery grass, grind the Our Father to a pulp between their teeth.
No head will rise among the stars,
Or cleanse the crown of thorns with gleaming blood.
In the thirteenth month of the fifth season, heaven lies below.
And we build monuments to honor the moths of yesteryear. We are alive.
We cook oatmeal with barbed wire. We are alive.
Walk through billboards’ sad rhythms, through squalid shadows on the cement,
Through the souls released from prisons of ribs.
Hallelujah! we are alive. We walk, cough, debate,
Shamelessly occupy a corner of the earth.
Not much is dying at the moment,
Today’s clouds plagiarize from yesterday’s.
In March I hear cherries hawking.
Many tongues shake loose the debauched Spring. Blue flies nibble at her face;
Her legs swish between the high slits of the cheongsam; she longs for someone to read her,
To go inside her body to do work. Except for this and death,
Nothing is certain. Living is a wind, living is the sound on the threshing ground,
Living is a pouring out at them—women who love being tickled—
Of the desires of an entire summer.
In the night beds sag everywhere. The sound of feverish light
Walking on broken glass, a confused tilling by coerced farm implements,
A translation of peach-colored flesh, a horrible language
Pieced together with kisses, a first meeting of blood with blood, a flame, a fatigue,
A gesture of pushing her away.
In the night beds sag everywhere in Naples.
At the end of my shadow sits a woman. She is weeping,
A baby is buried between Indian strawberry and Aaron’s Beard….
The next day we go watch the clouds, laugh, drink plum juice,
And dance away the remnants of our integrity on the dance floor.
Hallelujah! I am still alive. Two shoulders carry a head,
Carry existence and nonexistence,
Carry a face wearing a pair of trousers.
Whose turn is it next time? I wonder. Perhaps the church rat’s, perhaps the sky’s.
Long ago we said good-bye to the much-hated umbilical cord.
Kisses imprinted on the mouth, religion on our faces,
We each carry our coffin as we wander about.
And you are the wind, the birds, clouds in the sky, a river without end,
You are ashes standing erect, death not yet buried.
Nobody can pluck us up from the earth. We see life with our eyes closed.
Jesus, do you hear the thriving jungles humming in his brain?
Somebody is drumming under the sugar-beet field, somebody is drumming under the myrtles …
When some faces change color like chameleons, how can rapids
Retain reflections? When their eyeballs stick to
The darkest pages of history!
And you are nothing.
You do not break your cane on the face of the age,
You do not dance with dawn wrapped around your head.
In this shoulderless city, your book is pulped on the third day to make paper.
You wash your face with night sky, you duel with your shadow,
You live on inheritance, on dowry, on the faint cries of the dead,
You walk out of the house, then walk back in, rubbing your hands….
You are nothing.
How can you make the legs of a flea stronger?
Inject music into a mute’s throat, or let blind people drink up the light?
You plant seeds on the palm of your hand, squeeze moonlight from a woman’s breasts
—You are part of the dark night revolving around you,
Bewitchingly beautiful, they are yours.
A flower, a jug of wine, a bed of seduction, a calendar day.
This is an abyss, between the pillows and the sheets, as pale as an obituary couplet.
This is a tender-faced gal, this is a window, a mirror, a tiny powder compact.
This is laughter, this is blood, this is a satin bow waiting to be untied.
That night Maria on the wall ran away and left behind an empty picture frame;
She went to look for the Styx to wash away the shames she had heard.
But this is an old story, like a carousel lantern: senses, senses, senses!
In the morning when I hawk a basketful of sins on the street,
The sun pierces my eyes with spikes of wheat.
Hallelujah! I am still alive.
I work, take a walk, salute the wicked, smile, and am immortal.
I live for living’s sake, watch clouds for the sake of watching clouds.
Shamelessly I occupy a corner of the earth….
By the Congo River lies a sleigh;
Nobody knows how it slid that far.
A sleigh that nobody knows lies there.
(1959)
(translated by Michelle Yeh)
She somehow feels that something is calling her from far away
this mackerel-colored afternoon
when her fingers have completed a full round of the rosary
she somehow feels that there is something
But the sea lies on the other side of the ferry station
it is afternoon, she is sitting there
the bugles in the barracks always keep blowing like this
while she is sitting there
Perhaps the wind will rise tonight, outside the wall
the plaintive mandolin will drift all the way down the road—
something like this seems to have been written down in a book
what happened to the protagonist afterward
A vague guess. And she gets distracted …
closing her eyes she leans for a moment on the night
at the same time pushing the carnations on the piano farther away from her
since they make her heart ache
(1960)
(translated by N.G.D. Malmqvist)
That was simply another kind of rose
Born of flames
In the buckwheat field they fought the biggest battle of the campaign
And his leg bade farewell in 1943
He has heard history and laughter
But what is immortality?
Cough syrup, razor blade, last month’s rent, so on and so forth
While his wife’s sewing machine engages in skirmishes
The only thing that can take him captive, he feels
Is the sun
(1960)
(translated by Michelle Yeh)
At sixteen her name made the rounds in the city
Forlorn but lilting syllables
Those almond-colored arms needed a eunuch to guard them,
That little topknot was ravishing to men from Manchu times.
Is that an air from “Spring in Jade Hall”?
(Each night the courtyard filled with faces nibbling melon seeds!)
“How I wee …”
Her hands bolted into a cangue.
Some people tell
Of an affair with a White Russian officer in Jiamusi.
Forlorn but lilting syllables
All the matrons cursed her in every city.
(1960)
(translated by Denis Mair)
The necessity of tenderness
the necessity of affirmation
the necessity of a drop of wine and sweet-scented osmanthus
the necessity of decently watching a woman walk past
the necessity of admitting at the very least that you aren’t Hemingway
the necessity of wars in Europe, of rain, canons, weather, and the Red Cross
the necessity of taking a walk
the necessity of taking the dog out for a stroll
the necessity of peppermint tea
the necessity of rumors, which every night at seven o’clock
whirl about like dried grass at the other end of the Stock Exchange. The necessity of
revolving glass doors. The necessity of penicillin. The necessity of assassinations. The necessity of evening papers
the necessity of dressing in trousers of French velvet. The necessity of betting on horses
the necessity of inheriting one’s aunt’s money
the necessity of a balcony, the sea, and smiles
the necessity of laziness
But what is looked upon as a river must continue to flow on and on
such is always the way of the world—always:
the bodhisattva Guanyin lives on that faraway mountain
poppies grow in the poppy field
(1964)
(translated by N.G.D. Malmqvist)
No one can pull him back from the place behind the power plant
From wife, from wind, from after-dinner chatter
From the autumn courtyard overgrown with foxtail
No one can pull him back from hours after work
From little sister’s letter, from velvet cape, from cold cream
From the whole bind he is in, leaning on porch with face in hands
No wish to lead an offensive into Hungary
Or write all evening in a stack of red notebooks
At the cusp where darkness is welded to dawn
Not thinking of what some say “might be”
So sleep, my ocean
If she were taken with weeping
If she insisted on seeing the bad side
If she brought up the old matter about her cousin
Just sleep, take your own rest
My embracing sea
(1964)
(translated by Denis Mair)
On the farther side of the caltrop patch is a primary school, beyond that
is a lumberyard,
Next door is Auntie Su’s garden, planted with lettuce and corn
To the left of three maples are some other things
Farther on is the Postal Bureau, a tennis court, and straight westward is
the train station
As for clouds drifting over clothes hung out to dry
As for sorrow perhaps hidden somewhere near the train tracks
It is always this way
May has come already
Accept these things quietly, do not make a fuss
At 5:45 a freight train passes
The river ties lovely knots under bridge pilings and moves on
When grasses set forth to take over that far graveyard
The dead never gawk or stare
Most of all
On a terrace
A boy is eating a peach
May has come already
No matter whose roof eternity nestles under
Accept these things, do not make a fuss
(1965)
(translated by Denis Mair)
She walks southward on Dehui Street
Since September she has been far from joyful
Before the war she loved someone
The particulars are not clearly known
Maybe it was the river, or the stars, or the evening
Or a bouquet of flowers, or a guitar, or springtime
Or a certain not very clear mistake, for which the blame is hard to fix
Or maybe some other things
And all this can hardly constitute a song
Even so, she walks southward on Dehui Street
Now and then she lifts her head
To glance at a row of toothpaste ads
(1965)
(translated by Denis Mair)
*A suona is a Chinese brass instrument, similar to a trumpet.
*“Party” refers to the Nationalist Party, or Guomindang, founded by Dr. Sun Yat-sen. It launched the eleventh campaign in the city of Wuchang, Hebei Province, in 1911, which successfully overthrew the Qing dynasty.