What is the Firmament Hiding?
On the Central Shaanxi Plain
Dusk arrives too early in Luofu Town
Before mists evanesce upon the northern Qin Mountains
Lights have studded the nearby villages
While the desolate wind whistles in Funan Village
The clover in my palm is hesitant to fade its dark green
The two camphor trees by the river stand in silence
Lonelily waiting for the curtain of stars to fall
As the twilight mellows
Everything has merged into the darkness and found their return
In the wilderness some silhouettes wandering back and forth
Flit through my empty innermost heart
As if a pair of hands were grabbing me by my ears
Making me listen carefully
When I look around the surrounding country
A drizzle comes unexpectedly
Luofu Town which I haven’t seen for years
But have to bid adieu for now
Has resolutely transformed into a black spot in the evening wilds
*
This poem was first published in Meetinghouse Volume 5. The image is “Crow Speaks from the Shadows” by Jane Zich, also published in the same volume.
Wang Qi, author of five full-length poetry collections, is a member of China Writers Association, writer-in-residence at Xi’an University, Shaanxi One Hundred Young Talents, and the 1st and 2nd Shaanxi One Hundred Outstanding Young and Middle-Aged Writers Support Project as well as Director of the Poetry Committee of Xi’an Writers Association. For a decade, he was the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Yan River (second semimonthly), one of the oldest and most famous literary journals in Northwestern China, and he has won more than sixty national and provincial awards and honors. His poetry has been included in nearly a hundred anthologies in China. This is his first publication in the English world.
Chen Du has a Master’s Degree in Biophysics from Roswell Park Cancer Institute, SUNY at Buffalo and another in Radio Physics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In the United States and a few other Western countries, she has published 150+ pieces of English translations, poems, and essays in more than fifty literary journals. Yan An’s poetry book, A Naturalist’s Manor, translated by her and Xisheng Chen was published by Chax Press and shortlisted (one of four titles) for the 2022 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize, administered by the American Literary Translators Association. Contact her at of_sea@hotmail.com.
Xisheng Chen, a Chinese American, is an ESL grammarian, lexicologist, linguist, translator and educator. His educational background includes: top scorer in the English subject in the National College Entrance Examination of Jiangsu Province, a BA and an MA from Fudan University, Shanghai, China, and a Mandarin Healthcare Interpreter Certificate from the City College of San Francisco, CA, USA. His working history includes: adjunct professor at the Departments of English and Social Sciences of Trine University, Angola, Indiana, USA. As a translator for over three decades, he has published many translations in various fields in newspapers and journals in China and abroad. He is also a freelance translator for JTG, Inc., Reston, VA for the translation project for the US Department of Justice. Contact him at james16881@yahoo.com.