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.

薇拉-施娃茨的中文名为舒衡哲，生于罗马尼亚，犹太人，现任教于美国康州威斯理安大学，并从事中国现代史研究。1980 年曾作为首批美国留学生在北京大学中文系学习。她曾出版过七本书。

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。