鞭炮在山顶 / Firecrackers on the Mountaintop
鞭炮在山顶 ／Firecrackers on the Mountaintop
Sitting in the sun,
sipping instant coffee,
I hear 鞭炮 behind me.
I’ve gotten used to it—especially this time of year—
but still decide to turn and look:
Remnant streams of smoke near mountaintops
with freshly-fired fire flowers
barely lit in the daytime sun,
and I wonder why,
at almost three in the afternoon,
five days into Spring Festival,
in the sunny snow,
on top of the mountains?
New Year celebration? Perhaps.
Burial? Also likely.
Wedding? Surely not.
There is probably a tomb
at the crest–
哦，当然就是;
The fireworks are to wake sleeping ancestors
to receive money and goods the living have sent their way
during 春节。
But then I think,
as I half-listen to the crack and boom,
What if the ancestors are jaded,
like me,
don’t even pay attention to fireworks anymore
because they hear them constantly?
Do they ever wake up?
If they did,
I’d share my instant coffee,
lift a 干杯 as my 拜年 gift.
Translator’s Statement
This poem came from one of those real yet surreal moments when, as a writer, I am hit with the metaphorical resonance of the experience and know I have to explore it with words. I was an international student visiting a professor’s home to celebrate the 2012 Lunar New Year with his family in a small town outside Hangzhou, China. I have several poems from my time in China, and I intentionally use Mandarin where the words are more efficient, more potent, or more true to my experience as a foreigner. I’ve struggled with whether or not to include pronunciation or translation in these multilingual poems but ultimately have decided to use the Mandarin characters (hanzi as opposed to pinyin) with no further information, to really encapsulate the confusion of a foreigner. Sometimes you have no idea what’s being said–and that’s okay. But the choice of wordage also has to be inclusive to a non-understanding audience so as not to lose the power of the moment shown in the poem itself. And for those who do read Mandarin, there is a deeper level of connection and understanding that makes the piece more powerful and intimate, like an inside joke among friends. So for that, 不用谢.
Taffeta Chime received a BA in English and Creative Writing and an MA in English and Foreign Language both from Middle Tennessee State University. She especially enjoys writing fiction and poetry, with two novels (Stoodie, 2007, and The Last, 2011) and several short stories, poems, and articles published across a myriad of outlets (including Complex, Apartment Therapy, and Renew.org). She currently works as a freelance writer and editor in Tennessee with her husband, two daughters, and two cats.
