Bridge Across Broken Time:
Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory

Vera Schwarcz

Nominated as a finalist in History  by the Jewish Book Council's National Jewish Book Awards  1998

See also some sample pages from In The Garden of Memory
     

The knife of history has also made a deep mark on the poetry that I have been writing over two decades. Crossing over several language worlds - - from Hungarian and Romanian, to German, French, Hebrew, English, and finally Chinese - - I have borrowed, or rather stole, from all. Each time I left a continent, I took with me new verbal dilemmas, new gifts of expression. The struggle to say something in any one tongue has led me to love them all, savor each more passionately than I might have if I had not been led to betray the first few of my “Mothertongues”.

Vera Schwarcz
薇拉-施娃茨

Born in Romania, Vera Schwarcz is a poet and a historian. She is the author of seven books, including the prize-winning Bridge Across Broken Time: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory (Yale University Press, 1999) and two books of poetry, A Scoop of Light (March Street Press, 2000) and In The Garden of Memory collaboration with Israeli artist Chava Pressburger (March Street Press, 2004). Schwarcz teaches Chinese history at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and lives in West Hartford with her husband and daughter. Her poems appeared in: Ekphrasis, Taproot Review, Seneca Review, Common Ground Review and Voices Israel.

译者
Translator

老哈
Mario Li

老哈，原名李小庆，1960年生于中国成都，现定居美国内华达，以读诗、译诗、写诗为人生趣事。

Poet and translator. Under Chinese pen name Laoha, he translates and writes poems both in English and Chinese. He was born in China in 1960 and now lives in Northern Nevada, USA.

Maps

地图

 

				  
How do you travel without a map? More alert at the cross 
				  roads, knowing you have come this way before, knowing the road 
				  is carved inside, so you are not truly lost, not alone, 
				  another has traveled with you earlier, knowing that life is a 
				  journey in search of old maps. 

				  

				  		
				   
				  
				  

				  
不带地图，你怎么旅行？ 
				  十字路口你得更加戒备。这条路，你从前来过。要明白，路上刻有标志，你并未完全迷失，你不孤单，曾有人 
				  早些时候与你同行，你要明白，生活是寻找老地图的旅程。 

				  

				  		
			  

			  

				  
				  
			  

			  

				  
				  
Peonies
(after Yihuan 1840-1891)

				  		
				  
				  
				  
牡丹
仿奕寰(1840-1891)

				  		
			  

			  

				  
				  

				  
Peonies— barely pink, brash red bravely put forth new 
				  blossoms. Grass—a scented dance of brocade a carpet of 
				  rainbows at dawn. Spring—this year's cruel reminder that war 
				  swallowed all I held dear. Honor—a hound at my heels, as if 
				  wealth and glory were mine Beauty—what we cherish in dark 
				  nights, what finds us in the most desolate hour. 

				  

				  		
				   
				  
				  

				  
牡丹——只算得上是粉色的红，性急中勇敢地长出新的花朵。 
				  草地——散发芬芳的舞蹈织锦，一块黎明时分的彩虹地毯。 春天——这年头在无情地提醒，战争已吞没了我珍惜的所有。 
				  荣誉——一条跟在我身后的狗，好象财富和荣耀属于我似的。 美丽——那些我们在黑夜里所爱惜的，那些我们最落寞时来到我们身边的。 
				  

				  

				  		
			  

			  

				  
				  
			  

			  

				  
				  
Night Thoughts

				  		
				  
				  
				  
夜思

				  		
			  

			  

				  
				  

				  
Wild dogs howl, sky bleeds into a pallid dusk. I follow 
				  woods and waters, arrive parched at a thicket of dreams, lodge 
				  again in a crumbling shelter. The moon over the frozen 
				  fishpond, an icy mirror. Under sunken roofs, snow stirs into 
				  smoke. In the dead of night, I dread the snap of rootless 
				  willows, groan of years heavy with remembered time. 

				  

				  		
				   
				  
				  

				  
野狗嗥，长空血染，毫无生气的黄昏。沿着小溪， 
				  循着树木，我筋疲力竭中来到梦想丛林，在破旧的风雨棚里 再次落脚。冻结的鱼塘上，月亮好似一块冰镜。 
				  在低矮的屋顶下，雪花搅动着烟雾。死沉沉的夜里， 柳条的晃动让我惊心，那是岁月在沉痛中忆起旧时的呻吟。 

				  

				  		
			  

			  

				  
				  
			  

			  

				  
				  
Birth of a Butterfly

				  		
				  
				  
				  
一只蝴蝶的诞生

				  		
			  

			  

				  
				  

				  
You may come in the raw hour, when we count our losses. 
				  Each day we wait for you to show us forty nine faces of 
				  splendor, speed, strength, emanation of energy perfectly 
				  coordinated with greening grass, haloeing hyacinths, tapering 
				  tulips, daring daffodils. Wind and rain breathe you into the 
				  world as we soar on borrowed wings. 

				  

				  		
				   
				  
				  

				  
你也许来得不是时候，我们正在计算损失。 
				  每天，我们等着你向我们展示四十九张不同的面孔：辉煌，迅速，力度，与绿草完全协调的能量释放，还有光晕般的风信花，腰身纤细的郁金香，胆大奔放的黄水仙。 
				  风雨将你纳入世界，而我们凭着借来的翅膀在高飞。 

				  

				  		
			  

		  

			

			
Mothertongues 

          
If only you were a weapon and not the
          web

                    I
          war against at night. I thought you dead, 

          dried up in exile, a shard. 

          Beneath rubble the layers talk

                    in
          three different tongues: first dreams 

          of glass doors

          
in Hungary I was to never open,

                    a
          yellowing album to leave untouched. 

          You kept the war and sex and peonies, fragile secrets 

          far from the stubby fingered child.

                    In
          Romanian, later you 

          taught me songs

          
that spilled a sea
          of death into my nights.

                    In
          German, always out of range, 

          you whispered grown up worries of money, 

          a childhood in Gymnasium,

                    an
          empty cupboard of silenced 

          hope, no joy.

          
And when you did not speak at all you
          said

                    much
          more, a fierce covenant: sore blood 

          for tender waters. Today I swim in ways you never 

          taught me, not breast outstretched but like

                    a
          jackknife thrust against a stone.

          My legs hurt

          more and obey less well than my chest
          toughened

                    by
          longing for countries left behind. 

          My birthland speech has curdled in my mouth and so today 

          sickened by sour dreams I seek

                    another
          tongue to taste, caress 

 to betray.

        
Vera Schwarcz (A Scoop of Light)

          

          
          
There Are Good Reasons 

          to Hide the Light

          
          
There are good reasons 

 to hide the light

          
because our eyes are weak

          and would burn out

          beneath an unclouded orb,

          
because when truth is in the thickets

          we chase after it vigorously,

          
because it astonishes the heart to realize,

          later, the gift

          that was here all along.

          
          
Vera Schwarcz (A Scoop of Light)

          
          

          
          
A Brief Rest 

          In The Garden of Flourishing Grace

          After Yi Huan (1840-1891)

          
Terrace and courtyard, no human sound.

          Persimmon blooms blood red.

          
The West wind scatters river grass,

          A heart emptied of passion mirrors autumn grief.

          Fleabane petals and bamboo leaves choke the trampled path.

          
Break stride. Glance back. Ashes after fire.

          Water. Tree. Stone. Such ordinary things.

          Why then this bottomless ache over lost sons and daughters?

          
The mind replays last year’s stage.

          All that flourished and shimmered

          Now swallowed by red sheep.

          

          One distant mountain.

          Still running waters.

          A gnarled pine is my old companion.

          To search for nests is vanity.

          
Vera Schwarcz 
          
        

          

        

          
A Scoop of
          Light 

          
If the sun does
        not kiss you,

        if leaves don't brush your window with song

        and all you have is last night's splintering dream,

        inhale

        the golden liquid of the hour,

        take day into your belly,

        let it swell up with nothing more than words

        confirmed not by head or heart or eyes

        but from below the lungs.
Inhale.
Your
        history, a scoop of light.
Vera Schwarcz
        (A Scoop of Light)