Ouyang Jianghe 欧阳江河. Poem from如此博学的饥饿: 欧阳江河集1983-2012. Beijing, 作家出版社, 2013.
Autumn Listening: on a performance by the late cellist Jacqueline du Pré
a troubling old dream, turning to face the dead, here and now. not that you heard the intense impression of the wild wind weakening in the light, ending in a sigh before the distance of the disappearing string vibrato and the darkness of the tight-shut lips burst open.
heard was: flowing water forming in the vault above. water obeying deadwood, chiseling a deep notch. counterpoised shadows, plus counterpoised, shaded eyes glancing back, I see the fading of the æsthetes vast only in their backward glance.
one insomniac night the dim torch in transit to naming will be snatched from your ear. with a heartbroken old dream rolled up and reconstructed according to fashion. if late at night or early in the morning old age disappeared, no one would seem lonesome to forgetting.
oh æsthetes of romanticism! in tragic human nature’s good deeds will your flesh be expended, tears pooling, nothing to depend on. only flesh will be gentle, however brief said gentleness.
August 14, 1992, Chengdu