Once the Heavy Sluice Gate is Lifted

 

 

Once the Heavy Sluice Gate is Lifted

 

By Anran

 

Once the heavy sluice gate is lifted,

Images surge and flow like grey-white mountain mists.

That is the end of time:

The sky belongs to pure white.

Female catkins have the right to fly,

While the dark brown, furry

Male catkins harbor an endless

Heart of a King for the earth.

Back then, the world belonged not only to the

Two-legged beasts standing beneath the trees;

That vanished sky

Also belonged to the black-skinned elms, locusts, and local sycamores,

The heavens they propped up

Bore an innate melancholy.

Flocks of birds would find their broad shelter;

Cicadas, on summer nights, would devoutly

Join the choir en masse;

With a climactic roar,

They hymned that rich and stoic inner world.

Everything you do not see

Lies beneath the stumbling feet of those two-legged beasts.

 

In the green shadows,

Those rows of darkening red-brick buildings

Had not yet been harvested by capital,

Solid and steady,

Like monuments growing

Out of the blackness of the soil;

They held no pride of marble,

They were but human furnaces,

Where human voices boiled between the red bricks.

An old-timer scavenging for scraps

Stretched his shadow long,

Filling every crevice of the walls.

 

The furnace fire cannot burn forever,

Even if the hand spinning the top

Never tires,

It must eventually follow the melody of seasons;

Black magic

Once again sounds

The muffled horn,

Winning nothing but

Steamers and ice cellars,

Yet those red bricks will stretch their limbs

In the darkness,

Resurrecting one by one

From the embers of discipline;

Only to scatter again as the chaotic heartbeats beneath one's feet

And the spy dramas

Staged at every corner.

 

On that mute and silent night,

The moon hid early behind its Master,

As if it had received the notice in advance.

The parabola of death

Has moved along the axis of time

For twenty years,

Destined at last to fall.

Chainsaws roar in the distance,

I curse alongside my mother,

As steep anger plunges from the treetops,

Striking the fate of the developer and his son, ten years hence.

 

 

一旦沉压的闸门提起

 

文/安然

 

一旦沉压的闸门提起，

图像便如灰白的岚雾翻涌流淌。

那就是时间的尽头：

天空属于纯白。

雌株花序有权利飞翔，

而黑褐、毛茸茸的

雄株花序对大地的王者之心

永无止境。

那时，世界不仅属于树下

直立的两脚兽；

那片消失的天空

也属于黑皮肤的榆树、槐树与乡土梧桐，

它们支撑起的天空

带着与生俱来的忧郁气质。

群鸟将受它宽厚的庇护；

知了将在夏夜虔诚地

集体加入唱诗班；

以极致地轰鸣，

礼赞那个丰富隐忍的内部世界。

你所不见的

都在两脚兽蹒跚的脚下。

 

绿影里，

那几排发暗的红砖楼

还未被资本收割，

坚实稳固，

像是从泥土的黧黑里

生长出来的纪念碑；

没有大理石的骄傲，

它只是人间火炉,

人声在红砖间沸腾。

捡垃圾的老油条

把自己的影子拉长，

填满它的每一道缝隙。

 

炉火不可能永远燃烧，

即使那只抽动陀螺的手

不知疲乏，

也终要遵循季节的旋律；

黑魔法

又一次吹响

沉闷的号角，

胜利赢得的

即使只是蒸笼与冰窖，

那些红砖也会在暗黑里

舒展筋骨，

自规训的余烬中

一一复活；

再散落成脚下凌乱的心跳

和拐角处

上演的敌特片。

 

那个哑默的夜晚，

月亮早早躲进主人的身后，

仿佛提前接到了通知。

死亡这条抛物线

沿时间轴

运行了二十年，

终将落下。

电锯在远处咆哮，

我与母亲一起诅咒，

有陡直的愤怒自树顶跌落，

砸向十年后地产商父子的命运。