Yang Chi-chu / 楊淇竹
Yang Chi-chu（b. 1981） is a doctoral student in Comparative Literature at Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan. Specialized in East Asian Literature in the 1930s, her master thesis "Interdisciplinary Adaptation: a Study of Novels and TV Series of Wintery Night Trilogy" was published in 2010. Under the supervision by Professor Lee Kuei-shien, her first poem "Tamsui" was awarded a campus prize in 2006. She currently lives in Taipei, Taiwan.
chichu1114@gmail.com
To Beethoven’s “Moonlight” ／寫給貝多芬的月光
The Earl Grey tea in the bone-china cup, emblazoned
With a rose totem, inverts the image of the dim, blue moon.
Stars sprinkling in the tea are slowly dissolving.
The dark tea is stirring up the infinite whirl.
But you, have never move your glance at your master’s sipping;
The bone-china cup is more attractive than you play the piano.
“Moonlight,” the fruit of the overflow of by-chance feeling.
In love with many people, you forgot to present the master’s daughter a melody.
The sonata tapping on the piano
Is filled simply with your love.
Years later, a kiss mark remains on the cup.
Speculation has it that you’re in deep love with your master’s daughter,
And your secret afternoon-tea meeting with her surprisingly
Morphed into a love letter, spreading by word of mouth.
I drank alone under the slow-moving moonlight,
Being lost in the deep rose lunar shadow.
Stewing Potatoes and Meat ／馬鈴薯燉肉
The 309 Anti-Nuke march was being televised.
The potatoes were peeled and then diced,
Waiting to be stewed soft.
The gathering concerted all the protestors’ hearts far into the night.
Onion and carrot being fried with hot oil, the cutlets of meat said to the anvil:
“Don’t babble before we go into the pan.”
On everybody’s mind and body, a No-Nuke campaign was posted.
A can of chicken soup, mixed with bonito soy source and seasoning,
Was poured over the potato and then stewed.
What did the government say when the march ended?
Don’t worry; stewing potato and meat in whatever way can never fail.
Pineapple Cake ／鳳梨酥
I ate a Taiwan-island-shaped pineapple cake,
Packaged with food quality assurance,
Stuffed with the local pineapple growing in Guanmiao, Taiwan,
Sour and sweet,
The nostalgic, long-forgotten wax-gourd filling.
Decades ago, the countryside was
Teeming with big wax gourds. I liked
Giving away pineapple cakes,
To breed tenderness among the neighbors.
The leftover cakes, of which
The pastry chef would make the best,
were fully cooked and fried--
A tradition of cherishing food.
The insipidness of wax-gourd filling,
Which tested the chef’s ingenuity,
Was mixed with a variety of flavors.
Pineapple filling, unexpectedly
Becoming must-eat dessert, was
Kneaded into dough in pieces,
With a hometown sentiment wafting through the air.
Today the island-shaped pineapple cake
Goes for local pineapple filling,
Cased with the splendors of the island,
Blended with its tropical flavor, sour and sweet,
Scattered around shopping malls: It’s genuine Guanmiao pineapple.
Tourists
Know nothing but Taiwan in their mouths.
Translated by WANG Ching Lu（王清祿譯）
w410218@gmail.com
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