Lao Yang
Translated from the Chinese by Joshua Edwards & Lynn Xu
The train left my childhood
Not knowing its destination
Hometown at my back
I try to catch up, running barefoot

Thirty years west of the river
Thirty years east of the river

In Marfa
The train tries to wake me again and again
But my dreams, not yet over,
Are determined to last until morning

The train carries away dream and hometown
Morning and I
Remain in Marfa



馬爾法的第二個早晨

火車從童年出走
不知去向
我背著故鄉
赤足追趕

三十年河東
三十年河西

在马尔法
火車一再試圖喚醒我
可我的夢還沒做完
執意留在清晨

火車載著夢和故鄉遠去
早晨和我
留在馬爾法
from the book PEE POEMS / Circumference Books
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Yang is a good friend of ours and he spent a couple of months at our home in Marfa, while we were elsewhere for work. "Second Morning in West Texas" is one of a few poems in "Pee Poems" which reference the train that runs through the middle of town. The whistle's interruption of sleep is an experience well known to us, and to translate our friend's portrayal of it was particularly poignant.

Joshua Edwards on "Second Morning in West Texas"
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