Gedicht

Hu Xudong

Side by side

RIDDERKERK

A white cloud with a travel bag on its back
has just missed the gust of wind
that’s blowing toward Rotterdam.
It sits on an isolated dock,
midair, that transports airflow.
It stares out, occasionally moves its tired
butt and watches how its own shadow on the river
patiently plays Rock-Scissors-Cloth
with the junior Sun.
River Maas is so quiet that you can hear the cloud
cough. And through the crossed legs of the cloud,
only a few sleepy freighters pass silently.
“China Shipping”, the words on the container,
row like distant snoring. Suddenly the cloud catches
the sight of me by the river reeds—
having missed my ship, I sit restlessly
on a small lonely pier.
We say Hello to each other.
Its cloudy vowels drift around— so difficult
to communicate with it. It extends
a cloudy hand, trying to pass me
a Cloudy Cigarette. I decline the offer
as I only smoke the Yellow Crane Tower.
We try to make each other understood:
I have a beautiful daughter; the white cloud has a
a mixed-race son with a dark cloud that drifted
away last year to pick up singing above Cape Verde.
Before we go deeper,
Three-Masted Wind arrives, sailing toward
the Erasmus bridge.
My ship also appears in the upstream.
We take out our cell phones at the same time, shoot
some pictures, then the cloud goes on its own way
to Rotterdam while I set out in the opposite direction:
to a village of windmills
so pinky pretty like my daughter.

June 14, 2014
Ridderkerk Dockside, Netherlands

Rock-Scissors-Cloth is a game similar to the Western Rock-Paper-Scissors.
Three-Masted Wind: name of a ship that I imagine a cloud can take. I created this word based on “Three-Masted Ship” (Barque).
Cloudy Cigarette: it refers to the cigarette that a cloud can smoke as well as the famous brand name “Clouds” produced in Yunnan, China.
Yellow Crane Tower: the well known brand of cigarettes produced in Hubei province, named after the historical site “Yellow Crane Tower” in its capital city Wuhan.

里德凯尔克

一坨背着旅行包的白云
错过了上一股
刮向鹿特丹的风。
它坐在半空中一个偏僻的
气流中转码头上
发呆，偶尔挪动一下
疲惫的云屁股，低头观看
它在河面上的影子
是怎样耐心地和低幼的阳光
玩着石头剪子布。
马斯河上安静得能听见
云的咳嗽，只有几艘
还没睡醒的货轮
从云的二郎腿底下
无声地驶过，集装箱上的
“中国海运”四个汉字
像一串遥远的呼噜。
云突然看见了
河边荒草中的我，同样是
错过了上一班船，
在一个孤零零的小码头
万般坐不住。
我们互相打了个招呼，
它的云语言元音聚合不定
很难沟通。它伸出
飘忽的云手，试图递给我
一根云烟，我表示婉拒
因为我只抽黄鹤楼。
我们努力让对方明白了
我有一个漂亮女儿，它有一朵
和乌云混血的儿子，前年
飘到了佛得角上空去学唱歌。
还没来得及深聊，
刮向伊拉斯谟桥的三桅风就来了，
我的船也已在上游出现。
我们同时掏出手机
拍照留念，而后，它去它的
鹿特丹，我则去往相反的方向：
一个风车排列成行、
像我女儿一样水灵的村庄。

（2014年6月14日，荷兰Ridderkerk码头）

佛得角：就是Capo Verde的中译名；
伊拉斯谟桥：就是Erasmus Bridge；
三桅风：就是根据中文里”三桅船”（Barque）这个词和风组合在一起，自创的一个想象中云坐的船。
云烟：既可以理解为那朵云抽的烟，在现实中也是中国一个著名的香烟品牌，就叫”云烟”，产于云南；黄鹤楼：湖北出产的一种很著名的香烟品牌，得名于武汉的黄鹤楼。