ZhangFanxiu 张凡修

• If At All Possible  |  容 若
• Mother’s Cotton Flowers  |  母亲的棉花
• A Train Comes Through the Sorghum Field  |  火车开进高粱地
• Gazes  |  凝 视
• The Spectacles  |  被看见
• Innermost Being  |  心内
• Wine on Horseback  |  马背上的酒
• The Sound of the Wind  |  风 声
• Avoidance  |  规 避
• Last Ear of Corn  |  仅剩一株玉米
• The Autumn Wind Is Cooling  |  秋风凉
• Rotting  |  剥 蚀
• Wind Gust with a Long Face  |  风声阴着脸
• Seeing Through  |  洞 悉
• Passing Through  |  穿 越
• Perpetuity  |  不 息
• Frozen Earth  |  冻 土
• Winter Days  |  冬 日
• Letter to My Son  |  与子书
• Painted Vase  |  画 瓶
• Hallway Wind  |  穿堂风
• Darkness Is Mine  |  我有黑暗
• No Peace  |  不 安
• Criminal  |  罪 人
• Returning to Earth  |  土为止

From Selected Poems of Zhang Fanxiu

• INNERMOST BEING

• Under the tranquil ice,
• the fish pond is breathing, but no one sees or feels it;
• one can only listen.

• Press an ear to the corn stalks,
• bundled and buried before freezing,
• you will hear what happens in the eelgrass.
• Fish frantically swim around the roots,
• scraping their fins,
• digging with their lips.

• Come to think of it, the fish and I breathe the same way.
• Getting up at dawn, everyone sees me brushing off wood chips from my shoulders,
• but very few heard me
• frantically sawing back and forth through the night.

• THE SOUND OF THE WIND

• Throughout the summer,
• the wind rushes on and on,
• even the scarecrow has bundled up tightly
• in his old black jacket.

• Sometimes the wind lets up,
• the scarecrow’s thick jacket comes off.
• The white lining shows a broken seam,
• where a bunch of bugs crawl out.

• First he feels a dull itch, an awkward itch,
• then relief.
• His rounded belly feels soft
• by the time the grain ripens gracefully in the field.

• The scarecrow doesn’t know what is happening.
• The sound of the wind
• reveals nothing unusual.

• But someone in a windbreaker comes and puts a windbreaker on him.
• She folds up his cuffs, leaving two fingernails out,
• and buttons him up.
• This flirting makes the wind blush,
• turning red, and turning white.

• LAST EAR OF CORN

• When I noticed it, the upper floret of the corn
• had already grown mildew after the rain,
• with speckles as thick as cricket droppings.
• I slowly approached it, going down the slippery slope,
• stooping lower and lower with each step.

• Only one ear of corn remained,
• standing in a hollow surrounded by hills.
• “So lonely, it looks like the world’s last shack”,
• like a hut with one man standing inside—

• old and new shoulder patches
• on his brown cotton coat,
• worn over loose pants with calf straps.
• The hand-made shoes reveal only their gaiters
• with dangling laces
• tied above the calves.

• Has dirt got into his shoes? I can’t see.
• His white waistband, half a foot wide,
• dazzles my eyes.