Yu Guangzhong's "Awaiting You, in the Rain" 余光中 等你, 在雨中

Whilst waiting for my weekly ritual of "wine and dine" with my "swine and canine" friends , I found another one of  Yu Guangzhong's poems which I like. It's also about waiting. But I don't think it's about waiting to have dinner. It's about waiting for his girl friend in the rain, probably for a romantic stroll, but perhaps even dinner. Who knows? 

I found Yu writes in a way which appears to me to be remarkably similar to the way Lorca  and Neruda wrote their Spanish poems: simple, colloquial, spontaneous, full of parallels to emphasize the differences. In this poem, you find the poet making constant use of comparisons, contrasts, analogies, balanced sentence constructions, but always with constant leaping between here and there, the concrete and the abstract, the present and the past, the here and now with eternity, between reality and fantasy. But his analogies are rather more dynamic. Some of them relate to actions e.g. in the last stanza, not just to static images. Here it is, with my English translation.

等你, 在雨中                                       Awaiting you, in the rain

等你, 在雨中, 在造虹的雨中         Awaiting you, in the rain, in the rainbow making rain

　蝉声沉落, 蛙声升起                     Buzzes of cicadas rising, croaks of frogs falling

一池的红莲如红焰, 在雨中           Pond of red lotus like red flames, in the rain

你来不来都一樣, 竟感覺                It didn't matter if you came,  already

　每朵莲都像你                                  every lotus felt like you 

尤其隔着黄昏, 隔着這樣的细雨    especially in the evening, in such light rain

永恒, 刹那, 刹那, 永恒                     Eternity, an instant, an instant, eternity,

　等你, 在時間之内 在時間之内, 等你, 在刹那, 在永恒 Awaiting you, on time, on time, awaiting you, in an    instant, in eternity

如果你的手在我的手里, 此刻           If your hands were in mine, if now

               如果你的清芬                             your fresh aroma were

在我的鼻孔, 我會說, 小情人             in my nose, I would say, Little Lover

诺, 這只手應該採蓮, 在吴宫            No, these hands ought to be picking lotus, at the palace of Ng

　              這只手應該                            these hands ought to be       

搖一柄桂槳，在木蘭舟中                   rowing an oar of cassia, in a boat of lily magnolia 

一顆星懸在科學館的飛檐              A star overhanging the eave of the Science Museum

　耳墜子一般的懸着                             like the pendant of an earring

瑞士錶表說都七點了　忽然你走来 The Swiss watch saying t'was 7 already, suddenly you came running

步雨後的红莲, 翩翩, 你走来          Red lotus after the rain, elegantly, you came running

　　　　　像一首小令                                                        like a song

從一则爱情的典故里你走来         From a romantic classic, you came running

從姜白石的詞裡, 有韵地, 你走来 From Chiang Bai Shi's verses, rhythmically, you came running.