Last night, a friend posted on Facebook a Chinese translation of Pablo Neruda's CLENCHED SOUL (which was retitled as "We have lost even this twilight", just like the original Spanish title).
我們甚至失去了黃昏
詩／聶魯達 譯／李宗榮
我們甚至失去了黃昏的顏色。
當藍色的夜墜落在世界時，
沒人看見我們手牽著手。
從我的窗戶中我已經看見
在遙遠的山頂上落日的祭典。
有時候一片太陽
在我的雙掌間如硬幣燃燒。
在你熟知的我的哀傷中
我憶及了你，靈魂肅斂。
彼時，你在哪裡呢？
那裡還有些什麼人？
說些什麼？
為什麼當我哀傷且感覺到你遠離時，
全部的愛會突如其然的來臨呢？
暮色中如常發生的，
書本掉落了下來，
我的披肩像受傷的小狗踡躺在腳邊。
總是如此，
朝暮色抹去雕像的方向
你總是藉黃昏隱沒。
Clenched Soul
We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.
I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.
Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.
I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.
Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?
The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.
Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.
Seeing the poem, I cannot help but remember my pilgrimage to his three houses,
La Chascona,
La Sebastiana and
Isla Negra, in Chile back in 2007. Has it been six years already? It felt like another life. I was in Chile for the Santiago Film Festival (SANFIC), it was the first ever film festival I attended either as a producer or a director. I went there for Ming Jin's THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA, and stayed in Chile two days after the festival ended so that I could visit all of the houses.
