Ma Yongbo: Responding to My Deceased Father’s Order at Night (English & Chinese)

In the early hours, father’s order finally arrives—
telling our whole family to go and join him,
father’s troops have already reached a certain point,
leaving us, the military dependents, far behind.

In the compound, there are shouts of people and neighs of horses,
and the clatter of pots and pans ringing out in confusion,
elder sister hands each of us a triangular bag, stuffed with rations,
my wooden rifle gleams from being polished,
mother takes a long time to get dressed, in the pre-dawn darkness,
my three siblings and I wait for her to come out.

It is late autumn, and the journey ahead is dark and endless,
the horse-drawn cart creaks and groans
as it passes through the stubble fields after harvest,
I turn to look back at the sauce jar left beneath the windowsill,
I hit it several times with a stone, but I can’t break it,
some reddish rainwater still lingers inside.

At last, we arrive at the small town of Sifangtai,
only my father stands there,
at the crossroads shrouded in thin mist,
behind him, the 1960s-era town flickers in and out of view,
he is all by himself, with a heavy gun hanging from his military belt.

He smokes quietly, seeming a little uneasy,
his troops have already marched toward the Soviet Union,
leaving him—the commander—behind.
Why have we arrived so late? Father doesn’t ask,
perhaps it is us who left him behind somewhere.

~~~

夜里回应我去世的父亲的指令 马永波

凌晨，父亲的指令终于到达了
让我们全家去与他会合
父亲的部队已经抵达了一个地方
把我们这些随军家属落在了后面

大院里人喊马嘶，锅碗瓢盆叮当乱响
大姐分给我们每人一个三角兜子
装着干粮，我的木头枪磨得油光锃亮
母亲花了很长时间穿衣，黎明前的黑暗中
我们姐弟四人都在等着母亲出来

已是深秋季节，幽暗漫长的路途
马车吱嘎吱嘎，穿过收割后的留茬地
我回头望着留在窗沿下的酱缸
我用石头砸了好几下，也没砸破
那里还残留着发红的雨水

最后，我们到达了四方台小镇
只有父亲一个人站在那儿
站在薄雾笼罩的路口
他身后六十年代的小镇时隐时现
他孤身一人，武装带上挂着沉重的枪

他静静地抽着烟，似乎有点不安
他的部队已经向苏联方向进发了
只把作为指挥官的他留在后面
我们为什么迟迟到达？父亲没有问
也许是我们，把他留在了某处

~~~~~

Poem and translation 2026 Ma Yongbo

Ma Yongbo 马永波 was born in 1964, Ph.D, representative of Chinese avant-garde poetry, and a leading scholar in Anglo-American poetry. He is the founder of polyphonic writing and objectified poetics. He is also the first translator to introduce British and American postmodern poetry into Chinese. He has published over eighty original works and translations since 1986 included 9 poetry collections.He focused on translating and teaching Anglo-American poetry and prose including the work of Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Amy Lowell,Williams, Ashbery and Rosanna Warren. He published a complete translation of Moby Dick, which has sold over 600,000 copies. The Collected Poems of Ma Yongbo (four volumes, Eastern Publishing Centre, 2024) comprising 1178 poems, celebrate 40 years of writing poetry.