LETTER FROM BEIJING 3: HOW WOULD LI BAI WRITE TODAY?

北京来信3：李白活在今天会怎样写诗？

LIGHT UP

By Chen Dongdong 陈东东

Light up an oil lamp in the rocks so they can see

the sea. Let them see

the sea and the antique fish.

See the light too,

a lamp held high on the hill.

Light up a lamp in the streams so they can see

the live fish. Let them see

the fish and the silent sea.

See the sunset as well,

a firebird flying up from the trees.

Light up all the lamps. When I block the north wind

with my hands and stand between two canyons,

I think they will all gather around me

and see I speak a language

like a lamp.

(1985)

Chen Dongdong 陈东东, born in Shanghai in 1961, was one of the “Third Generation” in China that rose in the 1980s trying to bypass the Misty poets…