Next life I want to be an Andalusian woman,

來生我願意做一個安達露西亞女子，

dancing flamenco, shredding my own patch of sea.

跳著佛拉明高撕碎、拋散自己的一片海。

Or a cherry tree in the Kurdish highlands, seeing a black horse

或者庫爾德高地上的一株櫻桃樹，

come and go, seeing petals waft past an old poet’s window.

看著黑馬來去、花瓣落向老詩人的窗戶。

Or just a cloud over Kumbum Monastery,

要麼乾脆是塔爾寺上空的一朵雲，

mild thunder in cool air, an incantation vanished in a breath.

清淨空中的微雷、旋生旋滅的咒語。

Or I’ll be a cavalryman, armored, in Manchuria, my pillow a halberd,

現在我是空餘鐵甲的騎兵，在中國東北

waiting for dawn. Snow heaps its fury south of the Yellow River.

枕戈待旦，聽聞怒雪落滿了黃河以南。

Or a White Russian, last century, banished to a camp,

就像上個世紀一個叛變的白俄，流放營中

hearing a West Asian remember his wife, his

聽那年輕的西亞人回憶他的妻子和烏德琴。

oud

.

八千人在積雪上灑著工業鹽，八個電工

在冰封的電塔上過冬，再也不下來這莽莽人間。

Eight thousand spread industrial salt on drifted snow. Eight electricians

all night on frozen high tension lines, never more to set foot on this earth.

我空餘鐵甲、孤獨魚的鱗片——

一片作為燒水的烙鐵，另一片徹夜敲響。

I’m alone with my armor, its big fishlike scales;

on one I scald water, on another I hammer night’s tune.