Chen Yizhi (Ch’en I-chih) was born in Hualian on the east coast of Taiwan. After graduating from the Chinese Department of National Taiwan Normal University, he completed an M.A. at New Asia Research Institute in Hong Kong. At present he is chief editor of the literary supplement of the United Daily and a lecturer at several universities.
Chen published his first poem at the age of seventeen, and his first book of poetry, Setting Sun, Rising Smoke, appeared in 1977, followed by six more over the years. He has also published a study of gender awareness in the poetry of postwar Taiwanese women.
the water buffalo settles quietly
clear stream waters flow gently over its legs hooves belly back
just like Taiwan, a huge rock set down in the middle of the sea
rain like buffalo fur streams down
falling on its black-brown soil
its porous skin
it chews away on last winter’s plentiful grain scent
plunging its head underwater in the rain and then joyfully lifting it again
it looks out into the smooth distance, at peace with the world
following the low ridges between fields and the muddy rectangular plots
like a farmer squatting beneath a tree at noon to eat his midday meal
delineating spring plains covered in misty, gray drizzle
from riverbanks of green, tongue-wagging grass
ploughs and harrows are brought out:
acre after acre of farmland kicks up its feet and rolls over
making the eyes of innocent childhood open wide
15°C and a monsoon wind blowing in from the northeast
the ancestors gave clear indication of the beginning of spring
water in irrigation channels surges into the fields, vapor rises from the earth
wooden trowels tenderly embrace the sprouting rice
like mischievous children
the early-ripening sugarcane cherishes sweetness in its heart
plump white radishes long to remove their heavy mud jackets
when bananas put on their smiling faces, pineapples confess their green, astringent affections
heaven and earth in harmony, a beautiful first lunar month
rain pours into fields from almanacs
flows from childhood dreams beneath the pen
longan trees burst out in fine, tiny white flowers alongside Muddy Stream
the mangos of Gaoxiong get ready to receive the kisses of bees
the lotus-mist fruit in Pingdong signed their contract with early summer long ago
while I—come from far away
mount a turbulent wind at the stroke of midnight and ascend
in the beginning was the rain:
that dearest of brothers
(1985)
(translated by Simon Patton)
beard pulled into loose strands, head wrapped in a scarf the ancient way
feet splash-splattered with mud—he’s my cousin
in thirty years he’s never left the remote mountainside he calls home
on this occasion, he accompanies me across the river to the county township
muttering to himself as he taps the stem of his pipe:
there’s no life in this place anymore
when the steamboat turns
he coughs violently
there’s no life in this place
the waist-thick banyan trees have been cut down
the pitch-black mountain forest is gone
the stone-paved road to the outside world has been dug up
yes, and after forty years there’s still no electricity
the old people of the village are left with more and more forgetting
having no memories to hold on to
in the winter of ’49, his father was tossed into a nameless gully
in ’53, his brother died east of the Yalu River
all three children born over the years
are illiterate
in the Famine Years, they gnawed on the bark of loquat trees, nibbled on tupa vine
and when wolfing hunger howled in their bellies
they filled them with lumps of white earth
and so managed to survive
inside the Sweet Potato Restaurant down by the river
I order him finless eel and a plate of stir-fried pork kidneys
he shows me our broken-down family tree
and points to a line:
“From time immemorial, all things have been one with Heaven….”
(1988)
(translated by Simon Patton)
someone asked me
why a single red flower at the tip of the branch?
I said it’s like the fate of the puppet
always a hand pulling strings behind his back
someone asked me
why this endless succession of doors
I said it’s to calm people down
all these sideways-glancing hearts
someone asked me how to get to
the top of the mountain, the edge of the forest, the end of the rainbow
I said the sun rises in an early morning thunderstorm
dreaming is one way out …
but nobody asked me
what color are fairy tales, really?
and nobody answered
like waiting for a string of prolonged notes?
a car climbs over hills like a beetle
beneath a sea-blue sky a train crosses the plain
twilight has hoisted weariness
in the harbor an enormous oil tanker vanishes
in the wink of an eye
the world appears to be populated
in fact it is not
pen in hand, I behold in my mutterings
the mad flight of the mind’s tumbleweed
(1992)
(translated by Simon Patton)
1 Innumerable small ripples follow in the wake of my thought:
these are my followers.
In order to learn something of the vastness, they
are forever caressing my brow with their fingers.
How limpid my ideas—
wayward yet amenable children!
2 I spout a column of water at the blue sky
as if proclaiming aloud
a declaration to seize possession of an island.
Through me the atheists
catch their glimpse of God.
3 The long wings of a thousand gulls glide across the dawn
in search of me.
Like kites on their strings,
they patrol the ocean for me.
The journey lies wherever they soar;
the fish school wherever I voyage.
4 Heaven and earth are like an upturned bowl.
Who in the depths of the ocean is using sonar?
Is it the rolling dice of fate
concealing a secret code in their jingle?
Solitude, you too I know dwell in this vortex of surging tides
bearing the load of my inexhaustible tears.
(1993)
(translated by Simon Patton)
all because of a lapse of memory
he parked his car in a place where he had once seen fireflies
not noticing how dark it was
how bright the headlights of his car, wanting
to fly like a firefly from the city
to its outskirts, and only come down
in front of a window level with a sloping hill
a flight made possible by the absence of coordinates
at that elevated window he meets a star
in the middle of writing a letter, and asks:
Are you still writing that same old note?
that part of a letter once forgotten
again on that unillumined slope he meets with
an eloquent wind
and once more he inquires: Is this our story?
how fine life sounds, how sad it is in fact
there’s no one about
apart from the sweet-scented osmanthus it does seem that
someone did once walk this way
yet left nothing discernible behind
the plot is as unlikely as a movie
with effort he tries to picture the start of the road
he once turned to retrieve something he’d dropped
retracing the route, returning to where he was
the object recovered, but what of the road?
left alone in the darkness hitting out at fireflies
darkness: an exam hall he has never been inside
listening attentively to the unfamiliar cry of a baby, in the doorway of his home
bewildered, he passes by before he can name it
now, Alzheimer’s disease is a notice board for missing persons
looking for someone who has finally grown old
and cannot tell whether the stars are indelible tears
on a letter or in somebody’s eyes
owing to a lapse of memory he parked his car
in the green blur of a morning mountain track in the year 2012
there he seemed to catch a glimpse of himself, but after a moment’s distraction
the next thing he knew it was anxious sunset
everything in the intervening eighteen years—forgotten
by the year 2012, the stories people tell each other
and his many encounters with himself
have vanished for the sake of that catastrophic scattering of fireflies
(1995)
(translated by Simon Patton)
When you enter my dark, silent pit
I watch you expectantly
looking for me
in response to the prompting of my dreams
Just like all those years ago when thousands and thousands of troops and horses
held their breaths in anticipation
I call out to you
A foretaste of the army’s ferocity had
already come, tripping across fire
Roof-beams snapped, the ceilings of earthen chambers sank
In the instant I called
I threw off my head, turning to gaze
at the wounds of all those annihilated souls
The flexed arm of my former incarnation is jolted heavily against a stone wall
Maimed feet like the wrath of heaven curl into
tokens of destiny
I see you frown, confronted with
the 108 pieces of my body
imprisoned 22 centuries ago inside a dream’s
unease
When smoke and dust suddenly filled the air and misgivings appeared on all sides
I thought of you, convinced
that one day you would make your way into my dark and silent pit
in search of me
dispelling the unwoken dreams of my former self
You come to make two holes for my eyes
to clear a passage for my breath
Separated by memories of a vast and indistinct eternity
you will pass on to me a filament of human warmth
and teach me to remember
the roads of twenty-two centuries I wished to walk but never did
the shame of twenty-two centuries I hoped to avoid but never could
Vast and indistinct eternity had all its causes planted in
that instant of massed troops and horses
when I held my head up high without dread
but in a moment of distraction
before I had a chance to call you
fate arrived at last
“The paths of the world are treacherous. One must take care!”
And so I was imprisoned by the darkness in
a fortress unknown to the world
imprisoned in a pose of unremitting waiting, second by second
What remains unbroken
is a love condensed in time
Twenty-two centuries of waiting can’t be exchanged for
a single lifetime, not even impermanence
However, this world has always been waiting for you
to recognize me
by that single link of feeling
between mortal human bodies
(1997)
(translated by Simon Patton)