周焱，又名周琰（笔名）。1970年生于陕西，长于陕西。毕业于西北大学中文系，自学英语、法语，从事编辑、翻译工作。

Yan Zhou was born in Shanxi. She graduated from the Chinese Department of the Northwest University in China. She works as an editor and translator.

丽姨的故事

The Story of Aunt Lee

屋子很空
年月磨白了一些灰砖
也把一些磨得黑亮
碎屑静静落下，时间
竖起四围墙壁的坚实
空屋子里充满飘浮的气息
阳光照亮窗棂
孩子们丢下与影子的游戏
跑出屋子，到广场上游戏

跳房子，捉迷藏，跳皮筋
草绿了又黄，卖气球的女人
换了吹糖人的老人，风车的彩轮
转个不停，蒲公英向着湛蓝飞散
梧桐的果球破裂，在金色的空中
划出消匿的音痕。风从巷道吹来
沙子先于黄昏扑入眼睛
少男少女挺直身躯，望着彼此
陌生又熟悉

巷道消失在广场
广场伸出道路
放下游戏的少女
站在广场的圆圈外张望
太阳落山，夕光在天上
堆起幻彩的迷宫
浓重的暮色袖手静候

他曾推着自行车在城外等着
骑车带着我和女伴，我在前面
他的姐姐是医生，我去了他家里
只有他妈妈，我红了脸，没说什么
他拿着电影票，手上的机油还没洗掉
我问他是每个人都有票吗？他低下头
年轻时被人喜欢也挺美好，不是吗？

当时，我一定就是喜欢他
我们也好过，现在我们老了
几个月都不干一回事
可他看那女人的样子，他的语气
怎么能全都不一样了？
他是个好人
熄灯吧，他打麻将回来还早
丽姨在二十年寂静的黑夜中躺下

风吹散人语，只留下夜
广场裸露在星光下
叮咚、叮咚滚过一些碎珠
巷道的黑瞳不相交语
道路掌纹般若隐若现
睡梦中的孩子伸展筋骨
将要醒来，建造房屋，自言自语。
			

The room is a big hollow.
Months and years burnished some grey bricks
white, and some glimmering black.
Crumbs of clay quietly drop, time
Erects the solidity of the walls' enclosure.
The empty room is filled with floating auras
Sunlight emblazing the lattice window
Children discard the play with the shadows
Run out of room, to play on the plaza.

Hopscotch, seek-and-hide, rubber-band skipping
Grasses green then yellow, the sugar-figures blowing man
replaces the woman who sold balloons, colorful wheels of
pinwheel turning on and on. Dandelions fly apart to the azure.
The strobilus of the phoenix trees cracked, pollens draw
vanishing sound traces in the golden sky. Wind blowing
through the lanes, sands rush into the eyes before the dusk.
Boys and girls in adolescent back up, look at each other
strange and familiar.

Lanes disappeared in the plaza
The plaza stretches out the roads
The young girl drops down the game and stands
Outside the circle of square, looking around and far
The sun is setting, evening glow stacked up
an iridescent hallucination castle.
Twilight in dense color waits with patience.

Once he waited me with his bicycle outside the town
He carried me with my girl friend, I, sat on the crossbar
His sister was a doctor. I went to visit his home
Only his mother there, I blushed, not knowing what to say.
He held tickets for a movie, smudged machine oil still on the hands
I asked was that everyone had a ticket? He lowered his head.
To be loved in the youth is beautiful, isn't it?

At that time, he is the one I must have liked
We have had good times, now we are getting old
For months we would not have sex
But how he looked at that woman! His voice!
How could it be completely different?
He is a nice man.
Black out now, it's still early till he comes back from Mah-jongg
Aunt Lee lies down in her silent night of twenty years.

The wind puffs away human's whisper, only night stays
The plaza naked under the starlight
Tinkling, jingling, broken beads rolling down
Black pupils of the dark lanes exchange no words
Roads gleamingly loom like the patterns of the palm
The children in dreams stretch muscles and bones
Will wake up, build rooms, and murmur to oneself.
			

返景入深林

The Afterglow Entering Again the Deep Woods

存钱罐叮咚、叮咚摇晃
一枚硬币掉下，弹起
一道冷冻鲜鱼的银弧
声音破开晨曦，带入光景

三轮车咯噔咯噔碾过洒水的街道
晨光落在古槐树冠、青灰的屋檐
小伙计揉着眼打着哈欠烧起炉灶
鸟笼挂上枝头，女人从早市归来

日子是水盆里的纸船，
无需起锚，在小小的水域航行
游客纷拥窄街，阳光晒暖青石
连串的吆喝钓起最简单的欢快

天上的一日寻常却从来不屑雷同
荡荡蓝天，洇几抹云，堆起云层
阳光刺出长剑，山雨欲来，蝉静
蛐蛐也停唱，远风齐翻白杨阔叶

伴侣们坐在传说与轶闻的爱史上
相敬有礼，海浪般推斥又亲近
或两手空空，眼看着心萎缩悸痛
谁能爱着伴侣，在爱你的邻人之前？

我们谈论乡村，随父辈渐渐消隐的故乡
记忆里画了几笔？儿时的梦，有多少
还引领现在？还有我们一起倾听的
大海的呓语。两人各自陷入沉思。

晚祷的音乐响了，灯光的喧闹
在巷子背后寺庙的幽黑前失声
滴着汗的男人匆匆奔到殿前行礼
游人散尽，庭院还给宁静

不知名的虫子爬过石碑上的月影
秋月季自墨色的树荫里发出香气
大殿走出的男子和等在石鼓上的男孩说话
人们倾听一个呼唤，交付一天的喧嚣

深夜里仙人掌悄然擎起白色的花朵
雨后的矮墙上蜗牛伸出眼睛和天线
没有人真正改变，爱是长久的凝视
重返的灵光穿透日常的密林
			

Tinkling, tinkling, the piggy bank shakes with tinkles.
A coin drops, springs up
A silver arc of the frozen fish
The sound breaks the dawn, brings in the morning glory.

Clicking, clicking, the tricycles rolls over the watered flagstone lanes,
Morning light sets on the crown of the old honey locust trees, and blue-grey eaves.
A little waiter rubs his eyes and yawns, and lights the stove.
Birdcages hung onto the branches, women come back from the morning fair.

Days are like the paper boat in the basin,
There's no need to weigh the anchor, people set sail in a small water area.
Visitors crowd to the narrow lanes, jade-colored flagstones basked under the sunlight,
Strings of crying from the waiters hooked up the simplest joy out of the customers.

A day up in the sky is usual but never contents with the similarity.
Mighty blue, a few sketches of clouds inked out, or later piled up,
Sunbeams thrust their swords, rains is driving from the mountain, cicadas quiet,
Crickets stop the chorus, winds from afar turn the wide polar leaves in concordance.

Lovers rest on the histories of legends and anecdotes,
Mutually respect with decorum, intimately pull and push like waves,
Or empty handed, watching the hearts withering and throbbing.
Who can love your partner, before you love your neighbors?

We talk about villages, our country that is disappearing with our elders.
How many pictures we have painted in our memories? Dreams of the childhood
How many of them still lead our present? And the murmurs of the sea,
We have been listening for so long. Each of us sinks into the meditation.

The Sunset Prayer Call sounded, clamour of lights turns dumb
Before the obscure darkness of the Mosque in the back-lane.
Men with sweats hurry up to the prayer hall to do salāt.
Visitors gone, the court in the temple returns to its tranquility.

Bugs unknown crawl over the moon-paint on the stone stele,
Autumn roses send off aroma through inking trees' shades.
A man walked out from the prayer hall talks to the boy waiting on a stone seat.
Men listening to a call, and deliver a day's noise.

In the depth of the night a cactus lifts up a white flower secretly,
On the rain-washed low wall snails stick out their eyes and aerials.
Nobody will change one's elements, love is a long gaze.
The returning spiritual light will pierce through the dense jungle of the days.