Du Ye (Tu Yeh, “to ferry”) is the pen name of Chen Qiyou, who was born in Jiayi in southern Taiwan. He received a Ph.D. in Chinese literature from Chinese Culture University and now teaches at National Zhanghua Normal University in western Taiwan.
Du Ye started writing poetry in the 1960s and is a member of the Epoch Poetry Society. To date he has published eleven books of poetry in addition to many volumes of literary criticism and lyrical essays.
On the road home, the brightest headlights on earth that I have ever faced allowed me to capture the moment of your leaping in the air, but by the time you softly floated down, you had already been crushed by speeding darkness. All I heard was the sound of spring being torn to pieces. After that gentle car had sped off with a roar, I squatted to carefully examine you lying there embedded in the tire tracks on the cold, wet, desolate mountain road. Smiling, you looked like a thin, shiny piece of paper.
Then I too took off with a roar. There at road’s end, I first heard a single frog croaking; then I heard the croaking of thousands of your fellows surge forth. They squatted there in my darkened eyes, insistently inquiring about spring and your whereabouts.
But it was too late for all that …
I immediately turned my back on those frogs in the dark
I, with no home, held back my tears, not daring to answer them
(published 1977)
(translated by John Balcom)
It was when we were stranded on the second floor of the library, in the silence amid the old-style thread-bound books, that you asked me about the origins and development of the traditional song lyric. You immediately rose into the air; suddenly I drifted to the farthest snowfield. Head hanging, I wept. Then I faced into the wind, every scattered page of my book floated toward your shining tower, and I shouted:
“but …
(The snow silently drifts away)
what about the origins and development of our love?”
(published 1980)
(translated by John Balcom)
Early spring 1988
The 41st anniversary of the February 28th Incident
I specially buy an old cabinet
Vermilion, like the blood of our forebears
I clean it, dry it, and touch it with great care
The same as I treat my ancestors
I put it in the living room
I put my modern history books inside
I put my Taiwanese history books inside
I put all of Taiwan’s sufferings
Inside
I close the door
The door creaks
Closing Taiwan tightly away inside
The same as I treat my ancestors
I stare at the airtight cabinet in silence
I realize that all the sufferings aren’t really locked up
In the heart of the cabinet
I find that all the sufferings are
Here with me
Vermilion blood, the blood of Taiwan
In my heart
(published 1988)
(translated by John Balcom)
In my locked room
I think of them
No sky
No earth
No ray of light
I instruct them to open their textbooks
I write everything on the blackboard
The lights then go on one by one
In the glowing light
I look at them
Merely for a hawk
Or an egret
I too wish to create a blue
Sky
Where they can fly
Merely for a few flightless chickens
And ducks
I must labor to produce a magnificent
Land
Where they can stand
Let those that can reach the sky
Carry a lamp
And those left on the ground
Let them carry a lamp too
And go on living
(published 1989)
(translated by John Balcom)
I was studying the philosophy of universal love
And putting it into practice
Peaches stood at the border of my heart
Crying so that Mozi was helpless
She accused Orchid of snatching her territory
Of stealing my heart
Orchid scratched Peaches
Later Little Plum joined
The fray
In my tiny heart
They created
A Warring States period of love
Together, they destroyed Mozi’s system
I seemed to hear
Mozi, in a sweat, shouting:
“Not war, not war.”
(published 1990)
(translated by John Balcom)
After a bottle of Shaoxing wine
My wife becomes two
After a second bottle
She becomes three
Three bottles down
My wife disappears
How wonderful
The swaying ground
Is filled with stars
The delirious sky
Is lined with bottles
Late at night
All is quiet on the western front
The wine gone
Sobriety
Returns
My shoes are on the bed
I’m under the bed
My wife
Is in my ears
(published 1990)
(translated by John Balcom)
The tilapia and its children
Stand up to the fishhooks of mankind
The water is filled with hypocritical bait
And cold-eyed hooks
Day and night the tilapia ponders
Existential problems
Since aquatic creatures
Have no tears
And since they cannot live in their old home
The tilapia, unable to shed tears, has no choice but
To take its countless children
And like the birds
Fly far away
To a place high in the sky
Where there are no fishhooks
(published 1995)
(translated by John Balcom)