translated into English by Diana Shi & George O’Connell

3 poems translated into Greek by Sarah Thilykou

 

 

 

 

Turned every stone on the mountain,
not one scorpion: this was childhood.
But which year, what day?
Now I’ve returned,
the mountain pines thicker, taller,
and from a cleft of ochre rock
a scorpion, tail up,
comes toward me.

Eye to eye, in a single moment,
I am the stones beneath his feet.

 

 

 

 

From Frankfurt to Zagreb
the airplane crosses the Alps.

Cold snowy peaks,
pure frigid air.

Iceblade ridges look near enough
to slit the jet's belly.

I want to get closer, fill
a tin cup with snow.

The mountains turn ink-green
with glacial marginalia,

then red and yellow, mixed forest,
beneath the clouds, fairytale houses.

I awaken, once more in my body
a child amid ice and fire, shivering.

 

 

A DRINK WITH MY SON

 

What grand ambitions can a man past fifty have?
His is simply to sit and share a drink
with the son who left and is now grown up.
Two glasses touch –
this is how they embrace,
this is how they are reconciled.
Then, nothing to say.
When the son stands up to fetch another round,
the father stares blankly as
the foam slides
to the bottom of the glass.

 

Translated into Greek by Sarah Thilykou

 

 

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Wang Jiaxin is a poet, essayist, critic, and translator. He is the author of five collections of poetry, nine books of literary criticism, and two books of translation. Born in Hubei province in 1957, he studied Chinese literature at Wuhan University after university instruction resumed in the late 70s. He has taught creative writing at People’s University in Beijing for many years, and was made a full professor in 2006. His poems have been published in English, German, and other languages, and he has published translations of the works of Paul Celan. His best-known collections of poetry include Memorial (1985), Wandering Rocks (1997), Poems (2001), and Incomplete Poetry (2008).

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