(1938–)
Hu Yunshang, who writes under the name Lin Ling, was born in Sichuan and grew up in Xi’an, Nanjing, and Taipei. After she graduated with a B.S. in chemistry from National Taiwan University in 1958, she went on to earn a Ph.D. from University of Virginia. For years she was engaged in chemical medical research in the United States. She is retired and lives in New Jersey.
Lin started writing poetry in the early 1950s and published her first poem, “The Wanderer,” in 1952. She was an active member of the Modernist School and has served on the editorial board of the revived Modern Poetry Quarterly since 1982. To date she has published two books of poetry.
An icy liquid, in an overflow of fervor
spills out from a heap of melting snow
—after the show is over—
I walk out too, following them
out, also like a drop in their midst …
dispersed
Such a chilling thought
who can find
a flock of sheep lost in the open country?
(perhaps cold forms in this way)
I turn up my collar
though there is no wind, all is still
A bat with no eyes
flies out of the dark, then throws itself onto another
darkness, without any pointless hesitation
(1955)
(translated by Michael Day)
THE MAN WHO KNOCKED AT THE OUTPOST
The man who knocked at the outpost
does not stop below the tower
the man who knocked wears a dark gown
whip in hand, faces in, looking around into the distance
every gate shut tight, only
the eastern wall’s silver-whiskered watchman dozes
with eyes of memory, sizing up the arrival from far away
The man who knocked
does not stop below the tower
he never stays in any place
horse hooves make no sound. The long long whip
—when he leaves—
unexpectedly covers a moat, which has never known mist, with fine sand
The man who knocked left a dry branch
and the remains of a fire amid the wild growth beyond the wall
they fly up on the wind, and fall
but dreams of rest are not to be found
in the bags of the man who knocked
(1956)
(translated by Michael Day)
That land is not fit to live in
but I call it home.
It endowed me with the first
longitudes and latitudes of life, to the north of the Tropic of Cancer
It is the original soil
I repeatedly set foot in,
but ultimately leave
I remember, there
cattle of one color are not sacrificed, in the wilderness
brocade and silk are not written on, in the starry sky
blood
is not smeared on the lips—
an oath must be written with bones
but the modernist subjected to bone-whipping
is unwilling, also unable
to express emotion
I mean to say, to express emotion so recklessly
(I’m saying, ahh, so recklessly)
as an infant lifts a foot, alone
in the last blooming field of late spring
there is an urgency that cannot be tabooed—
I’m saying, like an infant’s isolation
by sleep
by the years:
From all profane knowledge
concepts and classical texts
and being the apprentice of—
lofty mountains and open country; make the heaven-sent wind
stop, take a ferry across the wide river
let the divine wind
guide you, everything proper for harmony
or improper
self-restraint and indulgence
(I’m saying … and I’m saying
a sworn
modernist is unwilling
also unable
to express emotion)
Even keeping quiet won’t do
reticence is the highest degree of vehemence
vehemence is the highest level of soundlessness
Even if it’s blankness
that won’t do either. Blankness
has followed time, tangling together
taking on form. (Easy to touch
hard to lay out the corpse)
It consumes and corrodes
my unstrung tension
plasticity and tenacity
in a very small place
laid with a checked cloth
twenty-four by twenty-five
—there, former days are soil; I cultivate
with aged seeds
and a mistaken time sequence
but today it’s a dormant bed, rest; the forbidden chamber
of my tempting dreams
There, every night, I arraign
intense emotions from the distant past
and consider
their release—
or execution: The ultimate
unpardonable
execution … if there can be found
a killing ground by a river
next spring, after the Waking of Insects
on the first nice day
hang, draw, and quarter me.
(1981)
(translated by Michael Day)
—AS A GUEST IN FRANKFURT, 1991
An elderly couple once parted before this door.
Cast away by children, they each had to
go their own way, to seek separate abodes.
Later it was said the man went to Holland
and boarded a boat; and the woman …
too old—coming down in the world is hard—
wearing an old leather jacket altered by her
mother in childhood, she stands on a snow-
covered hill, a Swiss farmer passes by and takes
her for a sheep, helps and gives
her land too, and a new home is found
(1998)
(translated by Michael Day)
TWO OR THREE HOME REPAIRS IN SPRING
This banister suddenly wobbles for no reason: Can it be
the flock of crows suddenly rising outside the window surprised
the irrepressible spring day
in the treetops; are the tricolored cherry buds
for the speed with which they fall
giving some hint of a brief life?
If not it is the restless scent
on the grassy hill; a fallen book of poetry
splashed paint the color brown
drips into the ripped-open chest of a young Hutu girl:
old news of nineteen ninety-four a fresh scar in ninety-eight
a burnt-yellow stack of papers darkly weathering
in the grass young soul-vested chrysanthemums and
dogwood
(and my brown girl softly sings
Rwanda ah lovely lovely Rwanda …)
Hidden behind the long stair
I indulgently select
this fragmentation unexpectedly executed on the blue sky
a slant perspective the posture of a bird’s-eye view
and history—
the crystal clarity through which its echo filters
and ultimately like a termite I leave my sawdust
(1998)
(translated by Michael Day)
*A good-humored self-portrait.