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Ma Yongbo: I Have Always Been in Love With You (English and Chinese)
I have always been in love, in love with someone
I don’t know you, who you are
I don’t know your name, your face
I don’t know which city you are in
Which country, which planet, which universe
I only vaguely feel you
Always waiting for me, as if in a previous life
I was your amnesiac lover whom you always loved
You wait for me everywhere
Everything has traces of you
In order to love you, I have loved
So many short-lived and perishable things
Sometimes I suddenly stop on the road
feel a breeze brushing my ears
That’s you passing by, with a sigh
As if you never blamed me for getting lost
Sometimes late into the night, on the radio
A long-forgotten song drifts out
With the cold rhythm of an entire iceberg
Sometimes in the clear of morning, a glimmer of light
on the other side of a thick fog seems like your vague call
Sometimes in the noisy amusement park at noon
A fiery hem of a dress brushes against my knees
A black veil flashes the serious lines at the corners of your mouth
Then swiftly disappears with the abstract waves of the carousel
Who are you? Your patience sometimes drives me crazy
Your tolerance makes me ashamed. I sit on the roadside
like a sulking child in a game, I want to test whether
the adults who have walked away will look back to find me
Let me rest my tired head on your lap
But your gentle touch
Suddenly stops in mid-air, changes direction
I finally know, you’ve always been by my side
Just not letting me know, like my lover in my previous life
Patiently waiting for the loyalty of memory to return to my midnight
December 24, 2023, Christmas Eve
~
English Translation by Ma Yongbo 马永波 and Helen Pletts 海伦·普莱茨 2024
First published by International Times 3rd August 2024
~~~~
我一直在爱着你 I Have Always Been in Love With You 马永波
我一直在爱着，爱着一个
我并不认识的你，你是谁
我不识你的名，你的面
我不知道你在哪个城市
哪个国家哪个星球哪个宇宙
我只模糊地感觉到你
一直在等我，仿佛前世
我曾是你一直爱着的失忆的恋人
你在所有的地方等我
万物都是你的痕迹
为了爱你，我曾经爱过
那么多短暂易朽的事物
有时我突然在路上停驻
感觉一阵微风擦过我的耳廓
那是你在经过，带着一声太息
仿佛你从未责备过我的迷途
有时在深夜，收音机里
飘出一段久已忘怀的歌曲
带着整座冰山寒冷的节奏
有时在清晨，浓雾那边的一束微光
像是你若有若无的召唤
有时在正午喧闹的游乐场
一幅裙裾火辣辣地擦过我的腿弯
黑色面纱飘闪出嘴角严肃的线条
又随着旋转木马抽象的波浪，迅疾消逝
你是谁，你的耐心有时让我发狂
你的宽容让我羞愧，坐在路边
像一个游戏中赌气的孩子
想试验一下走远的大人
会不会回头，来把自己寻见
让我把疲倦的头伏在你的膝上
可是啊，你温柔的抚摸
却在半空突然停住，换了方向
我终于知道，你一直在我身边
只是不让我知晓，像我前世的恋人
耐心地等待记忆的忠诚回到我的午夜
~~~
Original poem copyright 2024 Yongbo Ma
English version copyright 2024 Yongbo Ma & Helen Pletts
Yongbo Ma (Ma Yongbo) is a Chinese scholar focused on translating and teaching Anglo-American poetry and prose including the work of Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Williams and Ashbery. He recently published a complete translation of Moby Dick. He teaches at Nanjing University of Science and Technology.
Helen Pletts is a UK-based poet, who has also lived in Czechia. Her work has appeared in many anthologies.
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Thanks to Michael and Helen for giving this poem a loving home. Thanks to all my friends for your attention. Merry Christmas!
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Thank you Yongbo for all your wonderful poetry.
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Yes, thank you, Yongbo, and thank you Helen for co-translating the poems!
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Thank you, Youngbo, for your long career of translating important works from English to Chinese.
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I’ve now read the translated poem three times. It gets more interesting each time.
I’ve always wondered how a co-translation is carried out in practice. Does the original poet/translator use the second translator to indicate cultural aspects, colloquialisms, that sort of thing? In whatever way this poem was translated, the outcome is world-class. I feel the presence of that invisible lover, if not a double, something similar at the narrator’s side. Thanks to all worked to get this poem in front of us readers.
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Thanks, Jim. I love this poem as well. It feels so natural in English that I wonder, as you do, how our English friend Helen Pletts, pulled it off. Perhaps she’ll share the process with us in the comment section here?
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Thank you so very much Jim, for your interest and your very kind words for our co-translation, Yongbo and I are very pleased that you are enjoying it. You will also be pleased to hear that we touch on how we work together in the preface to our forthcoming bilingual book, which is due out next year.
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Thank you so very much Michael for publishing this translation of Ma Yongbo’s wonderful poem, ‘I have always been in love with you’. At first glance it is a deceptively simple poem but it marks a turning point in my knowledge of translation. During the process of the translation of this poem, the poetic voice of Ma Yongbo in English became ever clearer; it was like finding a key to his voice. As a result I have continued to translate more of his poetry, with him, to achieve an authentic match with his Chinese.
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Thank you, Helen. Translation is such a demanding art. I’m pleased to see that you’ve become so adept at it.
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I am indebted to Ma Yongbo, for his patience and his dedication as a great mentor. His poetry is outstanding and his experience and skill as a great translator are outstanding too. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity for me Michael which you opened the door to, for me, back in February.
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Yes, that’s how it is. And I am fascinated by this ‘double page’ as I was with translations I saw from Du Fu’s poems. The Chinese characters, so alien to most of us, look like writing from a differne planet. And they are so beautiful. I could just look at them for quite a while and wonder what each one means.
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I don’t know a word of Chinese, but I love to look at the intricate pattern of the writing.
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This is such a lovely comment Rosemary, after ten months of co-translation these little characters are becoming more familiar to me, and you are right they are very beautiful to me too.
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Someone else has felt it, too.
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Indeed, we have.
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Such a lovely comment Barbara, my best wishes to you
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