苍茫岁月，誓愿何日实现

当我们两个人同坐在山谷里；

当你的眼睛突然显出你的心灵，

含着远居异乡的姐妹的泪珠凝视

世上某个贞女或天上的某个星星；

当你美丽的目光，因长期痛苦而黯淡

在你眼中闪耀，好像枝丛下的火焰；

当你猛想起那旧日的种种苦难，

你对我强颜欢笑，却禁不住泪流满面。                

                         ——雨果

秋天略带清凉的微风，

由阿尔卑斯山吹来，

藤萝架边，玫瑰花娇艳，

咖啡屋里宁静安然。

从窗口极目望去，

湛蓝的天空飘着洁白云朵。

远方，矗立起伏的峰峦。

曹牧云笑对老友，

禁不住感慨万千：

“祁昌，在欧洲旅游，

这些山总让我想起朝鲜。

半个多世纪了，

当年在五圣山的坑道，

战火中的三个年轻人，

（杨艺云、江惠和我）

面对死亡笼罩的上甘岭，

书写过人生誓言：

“如果活过这场战争，

五十年后上海相见。

每个人述说亲身经历，

汇聚革命者的小传。

“时光易老人未老

世态炎凉情不变。

杨艺云成为我的妻子，

差一点将我送入鬼门关。

江惠医生深情难忘，

这些年苦苦寻访终未见。

世界变小又变大，

奇迹始终难出现。

“有过灵魂苦难的经历，

我曾浑身血痕斑斑。

再也不愿提起的往事，

任它藏在心中腐烂。

“如今，面对老友的询问，

我犹如梦中惊醒。

欧游旅途你我偶然相逢，

是梦、是幻、是真？

纵然诗的灵感无边无际，

我此刻的思绪，

却麻木不仁。

“问天、问地、问海，

问风、问树、问云，

千百次我扪心自问，

一声声敲响记忆之门。

“告别战火纷飞的前线，

群山也在视线中消失踪影。

伤残使我再进高等学府，

变成百无一用的书生。

离开了约定的起跑线，

误走过一段凄凉的路程。

“当年在西方山的采访中，

我中了敌军的冷枪子弹。

躺在山下的包扎所，

眼看着战友们冲上制高点。

望着西方山，我留下

几许悔恨莫及的顾盼。

“跋涉人生苍凉的旷野，

失落了那枚沾血的弹片。

岁月的记忆，

如芳草芊芊，

用什么告慰：

消逝的年华？

燃烧的夜晚？

用什么回答：

埋葬异国荒野的兄弟？

穿越险恶征途的伙伴？

“我一生只爱过的一个人，

竟是一个害我的人；

我一生误伤过一个人，

一个深深爱我的人”

祁昌露出惊奇的眼神，

默默看着曹牧云。

他说：“九八年我回国，

在五台山烧香，

巧遇一位比丘尼，

没想到竟是江惠医生。

“这个朝鲜战地的白衣天使，

也曾是你我的救命恩人。

枪林弹雨中救过多少伤员，

现如今，她为何皈依佛门？”

听完祁昌一席话

曹牧云几乎五内俱焚

如果说他此刻的感受

这种陈述不算过分。

他素来敏捷的思维，

恰如脱缰之马，

在浩渺的旷野驰骋；

前年春天的苏州笔会，

他曾巧遇梦魂牵饶的故人。

此刻，他专心致志地沉思，

饱经苦难的额头，

仿佛频添出些许皱纹。

也许，他又回忆起朝鲜，

江惠为他擦洗伤口，

在那冰雪覆盖的地堡中；

也许，他在惋惜往昔的岁月，

忽略了一颗真诚挚爱的心。

尤其是前年在苏州久别重逢，

不该隐讳内心炽热的真情。

亲爱的朋友，曹牧云

在苏州如何巧遇江惠？

我将在下一章，专门陈述

他们重逢而又离别的原委。

现在我们把镜头拉回，

对准历经沧桑的祁昌。

他紧紧盯着曹牧云，

闪烁不定的眼神：

流露出同情与安慰。

“曹记者，你知道，

我是个粗人。我想问

杨艺萍曾是青春偶像，

你俩男才女貌情投意合

结成令人羡妒的美满婚姻；

为何却演变成一出悲剧，

酿造成令我辈惋惜的不幸？”

对祁昌严肃的提问，

曹牧云真是五雷轰顶，

他此时欲哭无泪，

想吼叫却难以出声。

过了半天，他才道出原委：

杨艺萍一纸“思想汇报”，

阴差阳错令他成为‘右派’。

被押送农场改造。

继而被迫假离婚。

“文革”身陷囹圄遭劫难逃。

杨艺萍任职于艺术院校，

被诬为“走资派”，

整日批斗、受尽凌辱，

被迫纵身跳进黄河滚滚波涛……

他说：“我们的一生，

总在命运罗网中挣扎；

虚妄中噩梦一幕幕晃动，

心头伤痕难愈，哪能忘记她……

夏日玫瑰有她的绿叶飘洒，

倩影浮动在西子湖畔、烟台海滨。

尽管老来容易丧失记忆，

庆幸自有深情覆盖的浓荫。

“我的霜染鬓角的老友呵，

人生，有时

如长江一泻千里；

有时，又似

黄河九曲连环。

“你与群山有约，

我与沧海结缘。

94年我移民澳洲，

如今居住在

花园的城市，

城市的花园。

四面环绕大海，

天纯净，水碧蓝，

雕凿成南方大陆，

美丽而驰名。

“我们遗失了，

开启群山之门的钥匙；

灵魂终日等待，

一个崭新高度来临。

“虽然走遍了许多国家，

命运从未给我公正。

如今双鬓飞雪，

飘泊异乡，

我舞文弄墨，

依然不愿背弃——

青春的誓言。

战火的洗礼。

做人的真诚。”

2010-10-12改于悉尼

Chapter 10

While we both sitting on the valley,

When your inner thoughts

appeared in your eye suddenly，

With the tears of a girl far home-away

To stare at the sky,

There was a muse

Of the world or a star on the clear sky.

While you the beautiful eyes dimed under

long suffering，flashed as fires on wisps of grass

 in the wild field flaming ；

While you hit upon the years

The waste by echoing played smiling

 To me, but you could not help the tears out welling.                         

                            ——Victor Hugo

The years when the dusky light behind it

With their clinging vows yet to root

Autumn breeze

Blew from the Alps, beside the Wisteria roses

in its' fresh beauty of blossom；so easy

It was

And quiet in this coffee room. Through a window his

Gaze wandered forward on the blue-clouds' skies. 

The faraway mighty mountains dimly

Towering beneath this serene sky.

Cao gave a laugh to the old friend with

Setting his heart on these words:

“Qi-Chang, I have traveled around in

Europe, Seeing Mountains always

Makes  me think of Korea. More than

A half-century has gone when

Three young comrades’ been in a tunnel

Of Five-Sage mountain (Yang Yi-yun, Jiang-Hui and me)

Against death-covered the Battle

Of Triangle Hill, swore for the life-long:

“Fifty years after this war

If luck is all there is to it

We can meet in Shanghai city.

Each of us sitting there must tell own the stories

As gather small brooks together towards a big river.

“The time in light and dark, over land and water,

Keeps running off, but our feet with a kind of insane

Clarity still on

The road of deep snow and searing heat.

Yang Yi-yun became my wife and nearly made

Me into the jaws of death;

Doctor Jiang Hui was hidden in a shade

For whom looking so many years as

With dew a tall grass drenched.

A world keeps narrowing and broadened:

No trace of wonder is yet to come.

“Long walked on the soul-suffering road,

My body blood-striped and No turned away.

Yet no more words to say about,

Let it hide someway and die anyway.

“Face your asking today

That makes me awake, being out of a dream.

On the way in Europe journey,

Real or not, like a dream, encounter you and me.

In spite of millions of inspiration of poetry,

At the moment, my brain with thoughts in it as

A shiver of trees then nothing is stirred.

“Asking heaven, asking the earth and sea,

And, the wind blows,

Trees rustle, clouds beset harmless;

Thousand times of knocks of memories' door

Like the water dripping crushed on a stone.

“Walked away from the hammering battlefront,

Mountains disappearing beyond the present;

the wounds have turned me the University，

Returned back a scholar, useless:

A start line I was scarcely to leave and

Struggled on a path covered with forlorn leaves.

“One fighting day of that year I went

To the westward-mountain for an assignment

But fatedly wounded by enemy's bullet;

Lied on the downhill- field aid station and eyed

Our troop rushing upon the top of the West, upward

Gazing those steep trails of it, pity I was very lost.

“And now I have been on a desolate field on

 Which somewhere I lost a piece of shrapnel

Bloodstained upon reflection

Of those memories, as fresh thriving grass

Ethereal revealing itself like flesh

To comfort those past lives,

Those burning nights,

To have a dialog, unanswered, to the

Dust of those died soldieries

In a strange land, or survived ones through the war.

 “The only person whom I have life-long loved,

In the end, she was forced to hurt me;

The one whom I had hurt wrongly yet

Is the only one who really loves me.”

Gazed on Cao, with silent eyes,

Qi-Chang said：“in the year 1998，I went

Back to China to the Wu-Tai mountains to burn incense;

There was a Buddhist nun met who was

The doctor Jiang-Hui; my memories bend beside me.

“Re-picturing an angle on Korea battlefield,

White-dressed

 She was and had rescued your life and of mine,

Also, many wounded soldiers amid hails of bullets;

But now her secret amid converted incenses

Of the Buddhism”

After hearing what Qi-Chang said

In a sense Cao's feelings

Suddenly got the worst

Of him, or, be near it, never less.

He is a gifted man, with his mind’s horse

Being too busily galloped on the vast field;

Now re-picturing with her the met-scene,

The often-dreamed friend

In the spring-Pen of Suzhou before the last year

At the moment he was in muse whole-hearted,

The lined brow seemed more lined.

Might he recall the days in Korea

When Jiang-Hui daily cleaned his wound

Inside the icy-snow caped bunker; or thought

To think of a true love heart,

Yet sighing inward warmth ignored;

And in the Suzhou before last year when they met

Once more, he was going to do wonders, but didn't,

Merely hid true burning feelings burned.

My dear readers, you may ask that

How Cao Mu-yun had met Jiang-Hui in Suzhou?

That I can tell you about the reasons in the next  

Chapter and why

And what has made them being apart once more.

Now let us eye the man Qi-Chang who

Was too many years of being all roved,

He gazed at Cao Mu-yun, and lost in thought

That lent to his eyes at whiles a look,

Sympathy and comfort.

 “You usually know me very well,

Cao that even I didn’t have much schooling before

But sure Yang Yi-ping had been our army's idol.

You both as a Gift soul to make a family in a longer

Run which should be second none,

Instead of in every deep of tragedy ，

How could that happened？”

To the inquisitive words and his guarded glance

The suffering made Cao Mu-yun self

Want to cry but without tears;

Want to shout but without sounds.

After a while he said to him:

That year that given day,

His wife Yang Yi-ping wrote down

Something on her thought-honored documents

Given to the Party that brought him a sprinkling

Of other uncalled–for misfortune. He was

Yet swept to be one of Right-Wing,

Yet shifted to a labor-farm, yet forced

Her to be “divorced”

When he was jailed.

As a leader of the art college,

In the Great Culture Revolution if being called

As were-dog of capitalism, YI-ping suffered a lot

Of humiliation of day in and day out,

It but herald Death at last

In the safe haven of myopic self-destruction

Of rolling waves of the Yellow River:

Revolution was in the stirred air.

Now he heard his own voice:

“Our lives struggling in the net of fate

Lost in vain flashed as the nightmare within scars

Carved on my heart with a spine. Never forget that

seeing the summer roses in green leaves of her;

The Winds along the Xihu and Yan-Tai sea beach

Bear her pretty. Even clouded my aged memories,

But rejoice self lying beneath an evergreen mind-tree.

“My friend, full fellow-feeling and sideburn-white,

You and I, our lives just

Let it go like the rolling waves of the Yangzi River

 But yet like the yellow current

Keeps flowing-tricks, a succession of a nine-bend.

“You have been dating mountains and I the sea.

In 1994, immigrated to Australia as

A turning-leaf of my life.

Now living in a city garden-like,

Or called as a citified garden if you like；

Its four sides surround the blue seas.

The sky so clear and water,

As a colored pear

The southern continent sets in the sea

We have lost our own ration of luck, lost

The key to open mountains' door;

Letting our souls merely wait

One day when a new age comes near.

“Of being traveled around too many

Years in many countries, but justice

Little expected to overlook my poor voice.

Today see waves have whitened my sideburns,

And hunted the rhetorical, hanging about there,

—still keep on my solemn oath

The youth-honored vows,

Something special from the raging battlefield,

Be in-living determination as honest.