Better Than Starbucks!

Part A. Translating Mao Jing 茅境

(active 2005 - 2008 on internet)

 

## 你永远无法预测
* The Future is not ours to see

​

You may never know for sure
After this gust of wind,
There isn't going to be more ...
Of course, the wind blows.

What I meant to ask is this:
What has a gust of wind done to your hair ?
Has it knocked you down on the ground?
Or has it uprooted you in the mid air,
crushed your bones and made
your liver, stomach, intestine and lung
stormed down like bullets
hard hitting on that roof top?

​

## 乌鸦等我
* A crow waits on me

One day, my parents will depart this world,
my siblings may travel afar
my dear wife, sooner or later, shall desert me
as I am hanging on
my irresistable downtrodding.

But if on that day,
there still sits a crow
crowing on top of the television broadcasting tower
it gives out a sound
more piercing and cold than my sneer, then
there is hope that people see
this ugliest crow takes a sip of water 
after its long flight, and
waits on me.

​

## 奴工
* A claymation of immigrant workers

he toils in the field
he sleeps in the field
boundary between human and nature
becomes fuzzy and indiscriminatory

flesh and soil
come together, become your chunk of clay
soul and nature
indiscernable and inseparable.

This clay falls into the jaw of wolves and dogs
it turns into human flesh
This clay placed under an iron bar
it becomes a head over a slumpy shoulder
when this clay was lost and died
it returns to its earthly form.

There are cracks between this clay and that one
people rush in and rush out
the color of their eyes is the gloomiest kind
and I dared to take a closer look
it's made, - again
out of my native chunk of clay!