Blades, blades, blades in the water,
cutting times.
Throwing these cut pieces in the fire,
let the flames read my past
I ask them, ‘where is Ta now?’
Rains, rains, rains in the blue street,
pouring like glue,
sticking all the sound.
I can’t hear the answer.
In the letter mom wrote，
在底层抽屉我发现一封26年前收到的信。一封惊慌中写成的信，它再次出现仍在喘息。
一所房子有五扇窗户：日光在其中四扇闪耀，清澈而宁静。第五扇面对黑暗天空、雷电和暴风雨。我站在第五扇窗户前。这封信。
有时一道深渊隔开星期二和星期三，而26年会转瞬即逝。时间不是直线，它甚于迷宫，如果紧贴墙上的某个地方，你会听到匆忙的脚步和语音，你会听到自己从墙的另一边走过。
那封信有过回答吗？我不记得，那是很久以前的事。大海无边的门槛在漂荡。心脏一秒一秒地跳跃，好像八月之夜潮湿草地上的蟾蜍。
那些未曾回答的信聚拢，如同卷层云预示着坏天气。它们遮暗了阳光。有一天我将回答。在死去的一天我最终会集中思想。或至少远离这儿我将重新发现自己。我，刚刚抵达，漫步在那座大城市，在125街，垃圾在风中飞舞。我喜欢闲逛，消失在人群中，一个大写T在浩瀚的文本中。
北岛/译
Poetry and Memory
"I am here. Those three words contain all that can be said - you begin with those words and you return to them. Here means on this earth, on this continent, and no other , in this city and no other, and this epoch I call mine, this century, this year. I was given no other place, no other time, and I touch my desk to defend myself against the feeling that my own body is transient. This is all very fundamental, but after all, the science of life depends on the gradual discovery of fundamental truths." —— Czeslaw Milosz ( Knife Sharpener, 14 )
......So the function of memory is not simple: one needs to know the words and what they mean, but one needs also to forget the settings in which they were found.
Willingly or not, I keep going back and forth into the past. Poetry is a great method of mining the hidden areas of what has been lived through, the shadowy regions where endless discoveries lie awaiting you, all that material that has made you what you are; the places where you have lived, the times and circumstances, all the things that have shaped you. So, for me, the process of going back through memory is very important, back into those details that do not exist in anybody's head but mine. Childhood, then, is a magical source that lies between shadow and light, so deeply embedded in the past that it is always possible to evoke it with new shadings that may fall into the realm of dreams. ( Knife Sharpener, 15-16 )