Written by Jami Proctor-Xu 徐贞敏, a poet, translator, and Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley. From Tang Danhong’s blog:
A hand covered in gray concrete dust
with three scratches of dried blood
A fist curled around a red and white pen
Concrete conceals a face, a body
A photograph won’t let me past
cragged gray concrete pieces of crumbled buildings
I see your hand, your pen, ink drying
I pick up my pen, digging to reach you
before the ink runs dry
The only words I can find are my own
The only face I imagine is not yours
It has eyes from a boy at a desk
It has black pigtails from a girl
sitting next to a man I imagine is her father
She is crying He is wiping her tears
You lived once
Your hand created sentences with pen strokes
Ink touched paper
I cannot find your words
Concrete is too heavy
Photographs almost weightless
All I have are questions
Questions I will carry in my body
and return to the trees of Dujiangyan
We’ve both walked past:
What were you already saying
What were you going to say
在学校的废墟中
——为5.12汶川大地震而作
徐贞敏
灰色的水泥灰尘覆盖着一只手
有三条伤痕的干掉的血迹
一只拳头弯曲，包围着红白的笔
水泥掩盖着一张脸，一个躯体
一张照片不会让我穿过
像岩山轰然崩塌的崎岖的水泥楼
我看见你的手，你的笔，正在干掉的墨水
我拿起笔，挖着： 为了墨水干掉之前
找到你
我所能找到的词只是我自己的
我所能想像的脸不是你的
它有坐在桌边的一个男孩儿的眼睛
它的黑辫子是坐在一个男人身边的女孩儿的
我想像那个男人是她的父亲
她在哭 他在擦她的眼泪
你曾经活过
你的这只手曾经一笔一画造句
墨水抚摸到了纸
我找不到你的词语
水泥太重
照片太轻
我所有的只是裹在我身体中的问题
而归回我们俩都走过的
都江堰的树木
这些问题：
你当时说过什么？
你当时要说什么？
