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| 这首诗是去年埃利亚特·史伯岭（Elliot Sperling）去世一周年忌日写的。感谢友人、诗人Ian Boyden将这首诗译成英文。 |
存在 （致埃利亚特·史伯岭[1]）
这几日，一想起去年这时
你不辞而别这一世
这些词语就涌上我心：
无奈
无及
无常
无可名状
无可替代
无可慰籍……
如同以玫瑰之名
在一本词典里的寻觅
你以图伯特之名
清晰地，明朗地，无法混淆地[2]
存在于这个失去的名字之中
而我悲痛莫名
2018-1-26写，1-29完成，于北京
[1] 埃利亚特·史伯岭（Elliot Sperling，又译为艾略特·史伯岭），生于1951年1月4日，2017年1月29日在纽约家中因突发疾病而离世。2014年退休前是美国印第安那大学中亚研究系教授、图伯特研究计划主任。著有《西藏-中国冲突：历史与争论》、《西藏的地位》等历史专著。我曾这样写过对他的认识：“尽管他的研究在于图伯特历史和中藏关系，但他同时对图伯特的政治问题、人权问题等现实问题非常关注。他曾这样解释他对西藏问题的关心——基于对公民社会的根本价值予以认可幷捍卫的立场，而这与民族与国别无关，却因此支持图伯特救亡图存的斗争事业。”“他不只是学识卓越并具有启发意义的学者，更是一位捍卫人类根本价值的人。他一直以来的行为，正如加缪所说，‘不会止于个人的义愤，又具有对他者的关怀。’”
[2] 在《图伯特、Tibet与命名的力量》一文最末，Elliot Sperling写道：“Tibet，作为普世所接受的一个文化与历史的畛域，并不是现代的‘西藏’。令人欣悦的是，新一代以中文书写或发表网络文章的作者们已经重新发现、并采纳了‘图伯特’，作为这块他们深深关怀的土地一个清晰、明朗、无法混淆的称呼。”
Existence
—for Elliot Sperling[1]
For the last few
days
I have done nothing
but think
about this time
last year
when you left this
world
without saying
goodbye
and these words
poured
over my heart:
helpless
unreachable
impermanent
indescribable
irreplaceable
inconsolable….
Just as the name
of a rose
is held in the
dictionary I search,
you exist clearly,
distinctly, and unambiguously
in the name of
Tibet[2]—
a name now lost.
My grief is
indescribable.
—Woeser
January 29, 2018,
Beijing
Translated by Ian
Boyden January 29, 2019
[1] Elliot Sperling, born January
4, 1951, died on January 29, 2017 in his home in New York due to a sudden
illness. Before he retired in 2014, he was a professor in the Department of Central
Eurasian Studies at Indiana University and the Director of the Tibet Research
Program. He was the author of several historical monographs including The Tibet-China Conflict: History and
Polemics (Washington: East-West Center, 2004). I once wrote about him:
“Although his field of research was the history of Tibet, he was still very
concerned about contemporary Tibet’s political issues, human rights issues, and
other practical questions. He once explained his concern for Tibetan
issues—that he believed on supporting and defending the fundamental values of
civil society, that these must not remain unrelated from ethnicity or the
state, and therefore support the cause of the Tibetans’ struggle for the
survival their national sovereignty. He was not only an outstandingly erudite
and inspiriting scholar, he was also a person who defended the fundamental
values of humanity. His conduct was always just as Camus’ implored: “one must
not stop at personal indignation, but also possess a concern for the other.”
[2] At the end of his essay
“Tubote, Tibet, and the Power of Naming,” Elliot Sperling wrote: “Tibet,
as universally understood as a cultural and historical realm, is not the modern
“Xizang.” But it is the Tubote that a new generation that writes and blogs in
Chinese has rediscovered and adopted as a clear and unambiguous marker of the
land with which they are so intensely engaged.”
