Song Lin

REMEMBERING ANOTHER JOURNEY ON THE LA PLATA RIVER FERRY

translated from Chinese by Dong Li

wide as Lethe, this body of water can barely be called a river
those on the same ferry might not return together
Heraclitus lamented before as did Confucius
but the indisputable river claims its own precepts
as a river is a tongue of the earth
a few babies crawl in the cabin where the sun shines
a city resembles a mottled dinosaur from a quick glance
those standing on the stern appreciate the security
the dead are named after rivers, one is left to stand on the shore
to watch, stomp to songs and bless with deep grief
I think of the Yangtze, once a border river like La Plata
between Zhenjiang and ancient Guazhou, in the consciousness
vast as a body of water, you converse with me
and contemplate, in an attempt to reach the other shore
then our lips become joined together

SONG LIN is a poet from the People’s Republic of China. Among his honors are the Shanghai Literature Prize, the Rotterdam and Romanian international poetry fellowship, and a Hong Kong Poetry Festival Foundation fellowship. He has held residencies at OMI Ledig House Translation Lab and Vermont Studio Center.

DONG LI is an English-language poet and translates from the Chinese, English and German. He is the recipient of a PEN/Heim Translation Grant and fellowships from Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Akademie Schloss Solitude, and Yaddo. His full-length translation of the Chinese poet Zhu Zhu, The Wild Great Wall, was recently published by Phoneme Media.