May '02 [Home]

Poems on Paintings: Xue Di

Excerpts from Flames (Poems Dedicated to Vincent Van Gogh)
Translated by Keith Waldrop with Wang Ping

TheField Covered With Crows
Church
Starry Night
Drawbridge
White Chinese Roses
Sunflower
Tonight
Blues


THE FIELD COVERED WITH CROWS
(van Gogh: "Wheat Field with Crows," 1890)


Waves of yellow wheat cry in my throat
     I stand on the heights
Everything ripens! Seeds tremble in the storm
singing towards the death-house. Crows
messengers of the abyss, wings with the gleam
of lilies. I come. I walk
My loneliness is like crystal
Who listens to my voice in poverty
gives me his hand, sustaining me
My sadness is a mirror
glistening in obscure human faces

I give up art, renounce religion
I stand on the heights. Gazing at the past
is like staring down an abyss of animal lairs
like casting my whole life into a battle with beauty
The spear of fantasy tilts at my throat
The fields are ripe. In ominous presentiment
     crows, from my feet
soar up through my veins

O pure wheat
seven pair of silver forks stab into your pit
     The storm carries you back
     —far away, a bright nothing
     trembles in stone as far as eye can see
I come. I'm lost
outside the weakness of art. What
can undo the crime of humans who insult the soul

On the heights
—the gate of death trembles over autumn waters
The sky folds, like a compressed spring
My heart! Look again at the fields. Grasp them
as if grasping the maelstrom that swallows up
your love. Cry that you love
it is the peak of death
The loner grows fruit-bearing limbs
Cry! Cry, brother, towards the nothing, crows
circling over crops, cawing their
cry to mankind

Wheat Field with Crows: View



CHURCH
(van Gogh: "The Church at Auvers," 1890)


Sacred music unsounding
I stare at you
flowers, roots of the grass. A woman defaced
I stand before the true altar
listening ever for the voice of gods
Weeds everywhere
the neigh of pursuing horses
My life of devotion
ignorant of evil
At sight of the mute solemn stone
my heart begins to bleed

Teach us how to love
Facing earth's molesters
facing the furious dying father
He has cleft the place that oppressed him with darkness
Tell us! how can we unfurl into the day
the banner of joyous purple fir
Birds and we embrace
Buildings stand erect. Lionesses bless herbivores
Babies kick in the bellies of men
like rivers on a rampage dividing the land

Holy spring! In my blood there's
     an altar-stone onto which music descends
Worship! Soil, petals of glass
the pinnacle! There my heart
registers simple songs of the sky
All things on earth revive ten thousand times from death
Now, my heart, pray for them all

Church at Auvers: View



STARRY NIGHT
(van Gogh: "The Starry Night," 1889)


Evening is a trembling amber
People, tiny insects
curl up in the horseshoe-shaped air
Language calls out in the dark
Who is it races the fear in our souls
to describe the distant light
to open the constellations, flames licking the sky
With a strength that crosses village and cypress
I call out to Nature: I'm in pain

Brother, give me your hand
Two animal claws will come to grips
My poem, the roaring of wounded animals
The sky's giant teeth gleam over mountaintops exposed
Love is at war, a bird flies high
and changes his feathers as the river suddenly divides
Ah, what kind of drum
will stretch your skin and mine
Blood flows through evening sand
Our creativity is the drummer
grimly tapping out our hearts
In the deserted night
we hear them howling at our dream of life

Starry Night: View



DRAWBRIDGE
(van Gogh: "The Langlois Bridge," 1888)


Bright pure water
one side of the ferry hidden in reeds
The boatman's hand brushes catkins
magpie calls from the corolla
A sunny day. Birds shiver
Young women gather at the riverside
their wash-sticks like flower stems
unfolding on the smooth stones
The river ambles
Bristly thistles drowse day long
pheasants scout out their house
and stick tail-feathers in the donkey's bells

Who's in there chewing olive leaves
lying in the dark shade of the cypress' belly
Eyes that are covered by water chestnuts
chat with summer as it sports in the river water
Blue quivers in a cat's eyes
Noon expands the exquisite silk
Who's in there, pale of face, biting the roots of reeds
agape at the delicate frame of the distant drawbridge
A carriage ticks in the sun's pendulum
Trembling, he presses his heart
too overcome to speak a word
facing the boundless peace and silence

Holy day of sun
the present of grape juice from your lover
Your heart leaps with a string nailed in memory
The lotuses in a music reach out, hands under the field
to smooth away the pain of your life
give you calm and let you lie at ease
on the open wing of a dahlia
Cruel! Brief happy time

Langlois Bridge: View



WHITE CHINESE ROSES
(van Gogh: "White Roses," 1890)


Flowers bloom in the house. Milk
shines on leaves. Amid a
cry of nightingales
my wife holds out the corolla of her hands
Rose! Chinese rose! Tell me
when did I lose
my peace

Cotton crosses the surface of the vase
Lambs gambol on tree tops. My daughter
lies among the bush's roots
Her nails, sharp thorns from the
dark, make my heart howl in nightmare
nightlong. Chinese
rose! Chinese rose! Tell me
where did I lose
my happiness

Songs spin on my forehead
Deep beauty! Gold claws
throw life into the abyss of pain
My love opens in brief summer
like injured feelings in final
battle with the death of land
Rose! Chinese rose! Roses
burst in my chest. Tell me
when will those who begin to understand
remember me in delirium
and forgive the dying


SUNFLOWER
(van Gogh: "Sunflowers," 1888)


Sunflower claws walk the earth
across starving stones
A light, a call
a face full of seeds
shouting to get nearer the sun
The face unfolds in pain
proud tolerance
A sharp flame
burns at the sun's throat

Sun! I feel from beneath my feet
your rising power
and your madness
penetrating my skull! A bright drill
cuts open my skin
A hundred of my hot-tempered hearts
     rush towards you
life upright on the wings of a giant beast
cutting the dark
     with a wheel of light

Here is your palace
Oleander, pomegranate, cypress
in a throng of gray mice
alive and satisfied
Stags sparkle. In the pain of struggle
I'm granted a
favor and my life is established
on the land extolled by
those I love. My head held high
to hold the sun
     before I break

Yellow! color of dreams
Light with a rolling tongue
takes over my words and my pulse
Sky fortissimo among opening sunflowers
Life! sun where my father lives secluded
Flame! surrounding me
beholding my glory
burning me suddenly from inside
My heart, contorted in chasing you
sings furiously, shackled in blood

Sunflowers:View



TONIGHT
(van Gogh: "Starry Night over the Rhône," 1888)


Rock, September! A dark-skinned child
lights the lamp in the tower
Its golden orange shines at the moon
Rock, September! Tap on your water jar
in the evening breeze

My days are filled with secrets
But when? Can I make those I
love understand my wishes
by describing the chrysanthemum's pistil
My brow is covered with candles
Trumpets bend towards happiness
trumpeting my joy
to the peaceable Rhône

Love me! the Rhône where antlers
disappear. Stars shine out above me
Songs from happy lips
as this wine jar of tonight's sky
tilts towards my delight
Love me, September! Rock
Rock me with tripod feet
Shake me with the warm charm of your glaze
The dark-skinned boy is going home to the river
Tonight, my heart, here
you will feel no pain, no loneliness


BLUES
(van Gogh: "The Night Café," 1888)


The hand stirring coffee
in obscure night
tugs at the shirt of some passerby
Light is like a moth
fluttering. In the berry's pit
the claw of the beast moves
Before sleeping he pours blood
down his raw throat
Night, I hear you bawl into the mike
"Not a thing in the world to do—drop
your drawers, baby"

Human beings sit on chairs
tread on plants, looking stern
Clocks tick off numbers of insulted souls
The mike in the neck sings madly out
"Dark heart, dark night and my
lover, the well-known card-sharp"
Homeless. Loiterers
scratch their faces, echo the song

Derelict! displays animal skin in the warm
night, showing off magnificent houses
Pines tremble in the shiver of souls
beasts pass in mobs, not daring to look back
I feel fear on distant lands
Seed is buried all about me

The waiter faces me, eyes at a loss
A man out cold hangs on to a shark's fin
navigating a caffeine fantasy
The coffee shop sings hoarsely in my ear
Babies cry their unfortunate destinies
Ancestors panic in the very stones
Shall we simply throw this land away
Artists: sad and poor, you have
only poetry, bright sunlight
the music that turns people inward
to themselves! Nothing else to cling to

The Night Café: View

Xue Di was born in Beijing in 1957. His published works include An Ordinary Day, Circumstances, Heart Into Soil, Flames, Trembling, and Dream Talk. Xue Di is a two-time recipient of the Hellman/Hammett Award. Since shortly after the Tienanmen Square Massacre in 1989, he has been a fellow in Brown Universityıs Freedom to Write Program in Providence, Rhode Island.