My Chief：我的首领

我的首领

在您面前我应该保持缄默
其实我们一辈子不曾谋面
下一辈子也不能。这都无关紧要
我们走得最近的一次是我驾车
路过西雅图，那个以另一个
伟大首领命名的城市
伟大早已陨落。那也无关紧要

从车窗望去
远处一座大山
山峰高耸，雪衣洁白
那该是哀悼的颜色吧
四下里那么安静
那时我想起了你
我的从未谋面的不知其名的首领
我仅在一张邮票上见过您的头像
想不到啊，一张脸上
竟会如此仁慈和蔼

您让我想起我的爷爷
君子之风是千年的修行啊
您成了我的首领，不知名的首领
那一刻您让我见识了千百年的
狩猎与伤痛
饥餐雨露与豪吃痛饮
部落拚杀与和平共处
雪崩与篝火
干旱与涝灾
死亡与新生
厄运与人性
智慧与宽容
还有这绿色的星球哪
几千年修为的雅量
大海一样博大精深
高山一般视野宽广
世上再也没有哪个民族
会像您一样
地老天荒也不会有了呀

这是多么巨大的悲伤啊
我尊敬的首领
您怎么就想不到呢
世上小人众多呀
您从艰苦生活获得的智慧
一下子变成了您的愚蠢
最终置您以死地呀

是啊，在您面前我不能大声说话
又怎敢穿过时间的长廊大声疾呼哇？
有些时侯这世界不给善良者
发挥的德行的空间
在小人面前，君子风度
反成了您的弱点和死节
他们人多势众，而您孤身一人，我的首领

他们诽谤您无知，没受过教育
多少年来您潜心于感受与感觉
一代代演化着怪兮兮的冥想打坐
将无恶意伤害的信念铭刻于心哪
将多少仇恨充斥的狂放之心皈依为爱
那外表粗犷的爱曾经超越了时空的呀
只可惜那爱永远也不能救您于灾难
您没有逃脱最后一场雪崩
宽容并非人的本能
而是一种世代相传的觉醒
沉默在您脸上不断完美，成为艺术
您第一个返璞归真
找到了这星球上人性的本位
您默然，而今只剩空白一片

从您脸上都能看到
虔诚带来的欢乐与痛苦
您总是让我想起我爷爷
相似的相貌抓住了我的心
让您成了我的首领
也成了我此生最大的悲伤

生命只有一次，所以我们不可能
一次又一次重复同样的壮丽和不幸
首领是一生的认可
因为您我心中的伤疤比蓝天宽阔
那悲伤之巨大，此生无法承载
谁能向我解释几千年的自我完善
艰难成熟和代代相传的智慧
最终只落得邮票一张哦 ... 我的首领
一座大山怎么就能活生生地
从这该死的地球表面消失了呢？
千年修成的大智慧怎么就能
全然浪费在一张小小的邮票上呢？怎能…

看着那粗暴的邮戳
我痉挛的肌肉告诉我
您死了，枪杀，谋杀，灭绝了
死后您成了我深爱的首领
可您死得比死亡更悲惨哪
从而您使我颤抖
您使我想到原始丛林
和那儿众多的毒蛇猛兽
有人用文明和教育的旗号
掩饰那非人的残暴
2000年10月

（英文原文）

My Chief

In your presence, I should be silent 
The truth is we've never actually met 
In this life or even next.  No matter 
The closest encounter came 
when I drove past Seattle 
a city named after another great Chief 
Great but dead.  No matter

As I looked out of the car window 
In the far distance there stood 
a mountain, a majestic peak 
downing the color of snow white 
the color of mourning in silence 
That was the moment when I recalled you 
the unknown chief who I've never met 
Except I had a stamp bearing your portrait 
Never before that stamp had I seen 
so much kindness in one face

At once did you remind me of my grandpa 
a gentleman of millennia in the making 
Thus you become my chief, my nameless chief 
At once you bring back thousands of years 
of hunting and hurting 
of famine and festivity 
of tribal war and co-existence 
of avalanche and bonfire 
of drought and flood 
of death and birth 
of adversity and humanity 
of wisdom and tolerance 
and of this green earth 
Thousands of years have cut out 
a magnanimity that is as wide as the ocean 
and as far-gazing as the mountain 
a trait that could never be matched 
by any race for the rest of time

I could never fathom a sadness so spectacular 
How could you have no idea, my beloved chief 
how small other hearts really were 
The harshness of life brought you wisdom 
That has become part of your stupidity 
and eventually your demise

I can't even speak too loudly in your presence 
how could I scream across the corridor of time -- 
there are times a virtuous man can't afford virtue 
When dealing with low lives a gentlemen's kindness 
becomes his vulnerability and his peril 
You were badly outnumbered by low lives, my Chief

Rumor says that you were ignorant, uneducated 
You'd devoted too many years to feelings 
Generations of you trickled into a weird meditation 
and a strong conviction of harmlessness 
You had converted hateful and unruly hearts into love 
rough-edged love that would outlast time itself 
But that love could never rescue you 
from that final avalanche 
Tolerance is not an original impulse 
but a great tradition of awakening. 
Silence has been perfected into an art form 
You are the first ever to have reached humanity 
in its original sense.  In silence 
and now in blankness

Devotion can be joy and pain at the same time 
It shows on your face, you have an expression 
that forever reminds me of my grandpa 
It's this resemblance that captures me 
and makes you my Chief, my chief sadness

Life does not repeat itself so we can never 
have the same splendor and misery again and again 
Chief is a life time recognition 
Because of you, my wound is forever wider than the sky 
a sadness is so unbearably spectacular 
How could anyone justify that thousands of years 
of self-perfection, maturation and wisdom 
only ended up as a stamp ... my Chief 
How could a mountain ever disappear 
from the face of this god-damn earth 
How could wisdom of millennia be wasted 
so completely on a stamp?  How ...

Looking at the postmarks so rude 
My muscle spasm tells me 
that you are dead 
killed, murdered, extinct 
In death you become my beloved Chief 
Deader than death itself 
Thus you make me tremble 
You make me think of jungle 
and its many animals of venom 
uncivilized mannerism in the name 
of civilization and the so-called education

October, 2000