Ye Ren-jie / 葉衽榤

Ye Ren-jie（b. 1984）, also named Alen Je, graduated from department of Chinese Language and Literature in Hsuan Chuang University and from graduate school of Taiwanese Culture Studies in National Taipei University of Education. He is now studying a doctorate in Languages and Literature at the Department of Taiwanese Culture of National Taiwan Normal University. His main field of research includes Chinese Song Dynasty literature, Taiwanese literature, gender sociology, travel discourse, and liberalism. The feature of his literature work contains humanitarian character.

E-mail：suntedfriend@yahoo.com.tw

See through closely：Get started in Damascus

/ 咫尺望穿：在大馬士革揭開序曲

In the bustling streets, often we

watched Bab Kisan, light and shadow laughing at each other

just like the sun has been shining for thousands of years

that nourished Bab Kisan to go through the tremors every time

Ancient and plain Bab Kisan was shining into my eyes at the time

It was like when I was going for a walk along the Barada River, which was ravaged by the drought, I met you, I met you panicked,

lowered eyes, stunned, softly faced to the sunshine

the pale face is suffocating

The coldness, the un-breathing atmosphere

was slowly landing in the map that we planned

but it was ruined by the stirred emotions of a gunshot

It hits the firm thoughts and

the fragile houses

Mournful Bab Kisan was lost in front of me

Our prayers are getting smaller

The Barada River is like a necklace made of crosses hung on

Damascus, and I

just want to give the dusty heart a blow

Tanks arrived, their war was teasing

the street weeds and our destiny,

and then the clouds crooned, the disappeared light

and the rolling wheels

sang together

We always expected that God would suddenly appear

However, when the gunfire woke thoughts up again, the

light of the moon and the sun flashed in mind, which implied that we again will heavily pass through the door of

another age.

        The translation of March / 三月的翻譯

　　Within March of the Daoguang fourth year（1824）, Wanhegong Matsu Goddess was undertaking an inspection tour as in previous years. On the 20^th of March, when the patrol team was going back to the Wanhegong temple, the Matsu’s sedan chair suddenly sank to the ground. All believers were not able to carry the sedan chair into the Wanhegong temple. After asking Matsu for an instruction, the believers adopted the ancient ritual to worship Matsu and invited troupes to perform for Matsu in the temple, and then the patrol team was able to carry the sedan chair into the Wanhegong temple. Since then, people from every different surname family invite troupes to play for Matsu’s birthday; this has been a tradition for two hundred years.

Afterwards, have you found your happiness at the other shore?

Ships were between the straits

following the jolty fairway

sliding over the silent skyline

When you were walking on unfamiliar lands,

have you ever looked at back

put on the wind

a neat look became scissors

cutting off old dreams

sang a heavy hometown song

At my side

I could not see you killing

the blood-soaked moment

The Minnan sunshine was tied into a fire bundle

burning the wounds of wanderers

Your bowels tangled up the history

in the afternoon of March

disclosed a full of homesickness

Outside of the stately temple

young girls flied over

Matsu had a consecration and eye-opening ceremony

Tears on the face lightly slid over the fairway

to another side of stillness

torrentially gushed out from the cultivated lands

Have you found your happiness?

A lot of imagination rose the wave by following Matsu

in rolling, whether the knife in your hand is the sharp scissors or the blade

cannot split my hope of crossing the ocean

In March, started to rain

Your whoop came from the deep soul

Matsu tried to figure out the accents from Zhangzhou dialect and Quanzhou dialect in the sedan chair

and used a needle and strings to make them becoming a drama

located in front of the temple, defused the conflict

wiped White Snake’s wishful thinking

Afterwards, are you happy?

Watched the live and death of every generation of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou

Xiaoqing on the stage has started singing pop songs.

Matsu was serenely listening to the Chinese, Taiwanese, Hakka

indigenous languages, and newcomers’ languages

She gently took one lily out

and threw it toward to the distance

        Kids, please remember to wake up / 孩子們請記得醒來

　　In recent years, the African continent has been attacked by a sleeping sickness (African trypanosomiasis). After being bitten by trypanosomes, the patients will have headaches, cramps, fever, extremely fatigue and so on. It possibly leads to long-term lethargy, and even threatens lives.

Kids, please remember to wake up

Panted slowly, opened eyes gloomy

Feet stuck in the soil or creek were skinny

Took a step looking for diamonds and coffee beans

billowed the green stream in the heart, I prayed for

In the gurgling water of the illusion, there is no avarice,

no bizarre thoughts. The overcast that the storm could not disperse

neither was it spreading

Kids, please remember to wake up

After being through the barrel, the hunger

and the trembling mouth because of the poverty, turned round

Yielded to the threats of diseases, caved in to medicines and sickbeds

Your world has been bitten into a new map, gave in to the new order

The desert, the water and the air have been split off, succumbed to the climate

Kids, please remember to wake up, do not be forced by the nightmare

Let you succumbed, so that you left the homeland, the group, dance

or forgot the prayers of the thrilling moment of thirst.

A dark cloud, rain fell

Kids, please remember to wake up, your home

Need your gentleness. Tempered the steel of your will

Resisting against the scourge of the rebellion, the water struggle

the steamed boiling Ruins, or the border full of mines

When you were half faint and half awake

the hometown was ravaged becomes the flame or drought city

I prayed for the world that one injection righted

is as cool as the rainy season, drenched wake up the childhood dream

Stop sleeping, kids, stirred motherland

Kids, please remember to wake up, I prayed

If you fall asleep deeply, everything will be finished

The waves in the dream would slowly flow to the end

The fate will also be buried