Trial Run

translated by Chenxin Jiang

           as a door-nail
           and gone            to the world
           air             broke drop
nothing is certain but          and taxes
           mask             knell          grip
           blow              metal         rattle
food for worms sticky end brown bread
          or alive valiant to the             la la la
wish I were             yeah right you wish

 

預習

未知生焉知
不能復生視      如歸     而無憾
出生入      一線間    生契濶
輕於鴻毛     而後已而復生
     不瞑目不足惜
寧    不屈      鳴不默
一雞一鳴撐飯蓋鴨升天
憂患不終無安樂    啦    啦啦
未    得呢你就想

Credit

© 2020 Yau Ching and Chenxin Jiang. Published in Poem-a-Day in partnership with Words Without Borders (wordswithoutborders.org) on September 26, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem

“This is one of a series of poems I wrote after being diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer in 2009, and going through chemotherapy and surgery. Chinese people are superstitious about the very mention of death, but there are all kinds of sayings about death and dying. I brought these sayings together in narrative form, in all cases leaving out the word ‘death’ itself.”
—Yau Ching, translated by Chenxin Jiang

 

『這是我在2009年被確診乳癌三期，經歷了手術及化療後寫的一系列詩中的一首。中國人對談「死」很忌諱，但同時有不少關於「死」的諺語。我把一些諺語構成敘事，並把其中所有的「死」字移除或留空。』
—游靜