© 2017 by Gao Xingjian and Mabel Lee. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) License (https:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license. Citation: Gao. X. and Lee, M. 2017. Poems 1–9 from Wandering Spirit and Metaphysical Thoughts. PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 14:1, 5-8. http://dx.doi. org/10.5130/portal.v14i1.5406 ISSN 1449-2490 | Published by UTS ePRESS | http://portal. epress.lib.uts.edu.au PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies Vol. 14, No. 1 April 2017 Abstract The 2000 Nobel Laureate for Literature, Gao Xingjian, suffered cardiac arrest while directing rehearsals for his mega-scale opera Snow in August that was due to premiere in late 2002 at the National Opera House, Taipei. He recovered, and the opera premiered as scheduled with the help of a co-director before he returned to Paris to direct the Comédie Français premiere of his Quatre quatuors pour un week-end. He underwent surgery in February and March of 2003, but was soon again back at work. The year 2003 had been designated ‘Gao Xingjian Year’ by the City of Marseille, and he would direct his new play Le Quêteur de la Mort at Théâtre du Gymnase, and then his Snow in August at Opéra de Marseille. It was during rehearsals for the former that he collapsed again, and was hospitalized: the play was co-directed by Romain Bonnin, 23–26 September 2003. Large exhibitions of Gao’s artworks had been held earlier that year, but the performance of Snow in August was postponed. During his recuperation for most of 2004, he sometimes wrote poems, some of which he later polished or rewrote for his 2012 collection Wandering Spirit and Metaphysical Thoughts. These translations by Mabel Lee are poems 1 through 9 from that collection (Taipei: Lianjing, 2012, 89–97). Keywords Gao Xingjian; Nobel Laureate; Wandering Spirit and Metaphysical Thoughts; Mabel Lee; translation CULTURAL WORK Poems 1–9 from Wandering Spirit and Metaphysical Thoughts Gao Xingjian1, Mabel Lee2 1 Poet, Paris 2 Translator, University of Sydney Corresponding author: Dr Mabel Lee, China Studies Centre, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. mabel.lee@sydney.edu.au DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/portal.v14i1.5406 Article History: Received 07/02/2017; Revised 08/02/2017; Accepted 10/02/2017; Published 04/05/2017 Transitions and Dislocations, Curated Cultural Works Issue, Curated by Paul Allatson. DECLARATION OF CONFLICTING INTEREST The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. FUNDING The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. 5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/portal.v14i1.5406 http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/portal.v14i1.5406 http://portal.epress.lib.uts.edu.au http://portal.epress.lib.uts.edu.au mailto:mabel.lee@sydney.edu.au http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/portal.v14i1.5406 (1) Life for you Is again so fresh You’re still in the human world Indulging yourself And galloping around one more time What good luck! Death was to have despatched you But God said wait Let him have another turn The reprobate still has things to say And there’s no harm letting him finish That joker has too many ideas And should’ve dealt with them long ago Says Death who has equal rank with darkness God who is indeed the epitome of kindness Has given him a horse Treats him as his favourite son And forgives him again (2) Right now, you’re close to the hoary sky Far from humankind And the clarity you’ve just won Ah, what great freedom! You look down at the human world The shambolic multitudes Fighting and squabbling A totality of chaos Everyone runs around Oblivious To the big invisible hand That sometimes toys with them in the dark (3) A well Endlessly deep God Gao and Lee PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, April 20176 Is sitting inside Eyes shut to conserve energy Invisible to you and me (4) Life is a miracle You came to the world By chance And in fact Are inferior to a blade of grass Whether you’ll make it through winter Heaven only knows But the grass next spring Will be swaying in the wind You’re insignificant Inferior to dust When the allocated time comes You’ll be deleted with a brush stroke Whereas the dust Will go and return And can never be wiped away Life comes by chance And goes by chance The dispersal of the spirit Is faster than dust Dust and life Are essentially inseparable Distilled and rarefied Limitless times You are An ineffable miracle (5) A skull Two black holes A fragment of the chin No longer speaks A disintegrating skeleton Like withered branches of a tree Poems 1 to 9 PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, April 20177 (6) By taking a step back One can scrutinize The head Even take it down And have fun playing with it If this gets boring Nothing wrong with putting it back (7) The truth can’t be spoken Once spoken it is no longer truth It’s enough just to know And whatever is unknown Should be left to happen For example People invariably die And hearing this people will shrug Or smile But when a smile isn’t possible It will have been verified (8) You know How hard it was crawling out of the quagmire So why clean the sludge you leave behind Just let it return to the quagmire The noise behind you turns raucous And if life hasn’t ended Even taking one step at a time Is to walk one’s own road (9) You may as well recreate A weightless nature A Garden of Eden in your heart Where you can wander leisurely To your heart’s delight Gao and Lee PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, April 20178