One Word Reveals Itself a Butterfly
PoetryScanning electron image of a butterfly's wing.
One Word Reveals Itself a Butterfly
—for Woeser
One chair is an invitation—two
an interrogation. The two black
chairs left as a threat in the alley
outside your house is what I feared
when you left for Tibet last spring.
I worried you might be disappeared,
the two chairs opened like wings
of a terrible flight.
Now that you are returning to Beijing
I worry about you again—
your friends have been taken,
the lawyers are gone.
What I have are the words
you send, and I translate
these few details of your life—
you see a cloud in the form of a yak,
and it becomes Tibet.
A distant fire becomes a person
whose only voice is flame.
Each image opens to its paired other.
Your words are filled with the urgent present.
By the time I receive them,
the days have passed.
They are shadows to your days.
Though sometimes one word
reveals itself a butterfly:
a single word, and the butterfly opens.
A dream. I meet you
where our realities intersect.
We face one chair to another
and meet without fear.
A single word opens the butterfly-me
who flies to butterfly-you. The wings.
Every word is inscribed with words
in the future of consequence.
Each butterfly a four-page book,
the Four Noble Truths written
on its wings:
opening to suffering and desire;
closing to elimination and emancipation.
The way is written
in the dust of their wings.
—Ian Boyden
December 29, 2018
一个词展露自己是蝴蝶
——献给唯色
一把椅子是邀请，两把
就是审讯。两把黑椅子
当作威胁留在你门外的巷道里
令我恐惧
当你去年春天去图伯特的时候。
我担心你会消失，
两把椅子像
一次可怕飞行的翅膀展开。
现在你要回北京，
我再次担心你。
你的朋友被带走了，
律师们都走了。
我所拥有的是一些言语
你发送，我翻译
你生活中的稀许细节。
你看到一朵云形如牦牛，
它变成了图伯特
遥远的火焰变成了一个人
他唯一的声音是火焰。
每个图像打开与之相映的图像。
你的言语充满了当下的紧迫。
到我收到它们的时候，
日子已经过去了。
你的言语是你时日的阴影。
虽然有时一个字
展露自己是一只蝴蝶：
一个字，而蝴蝶打开。
一个梦。我见到你
在我们的现实相交的地方。
我们把一把椅子面对另一把椅子
没有恐惧地相遇。
一个字打开了蝴蝶的我
而飞到蝴蝶的你。翅膀。
在有因果的未来
每个词都刻着别的文字。
每只蝴蝶都是一本四页的书，
四圣谛写
在它们的翅膀上：
飞上苦集;
飞下灭道 。
道
写在他们翅膀的尘土中。
—Ian Boyden 2018年12月29日
(感谢唐丹鸿帮我翻译）
