Feeling · Poem

Elegy for Dunkirk

末日的死亡风暴席卷过后的落日把敦刻尔克的沙滩照得狭长,

污泥浸透的军装上暗黑的血迹斑斑,

散落一地的灵魂和肉体碎片,

硝烟捎着幽怨的亡灵,

在残存的年轻士兵的挽歌里烟消云散;

在摇摇欲坠的摩天轮上,

在无尽轮回的旋转木马里,

在搁浅的沉船中,

你还可以看到一个个弹孔,

锈迹斑斑,

犹如心脏上永恒的伤痕。

 

The setting sun stretched Dunkirk’s beach in a long, narrow shadow after the deadly storm of doomsday swept through, 

Dark bloodstains adorned the muddy military attire,

while souls and body fragments lay scattered on the ground.

The acrid smoke of gunpowder carried away mournful spirits,

which dissipated amidst the requiems of the remaining young soldiers.

On the rickety Ferris wheel,

the rotating carousel of endless reincarnation,

and the stranded sunken ships,

one can still see bullet holes and rust stains,

carving the eternal crimson scars on the hearts of the lost.

(imaged generated by MidJourney using the poem as the prompt)

Astronomy

Detachment

All meaning is born from entangled confinement, where orders and chaos are shielded from the vacuum of nothingness. All ideas are implanted, yet the origins are long lost, but much should have been born from emergence. Through the anchoring of space and time, we find our paths.

The moment we’ve been given a life, we are gifted with death somewhere along the journey. Together in a single reality, we experience billions of different ones, interconnected, locked, and knotted.  

I have been in love with space as a young boy until now. In this dream of the love of the universe, there is no struggle to find academic jobs, and there is no pressure to “publish or perish”; there is no dirty competition or all sorts of toxic academic traits… I can stare at the sky for hours and feel a deep emotional connection with the vastness, feel of being small, being a speck of tiny dust on the pale blue dot. Luckily enough, I have come a long way now, being a postdoc researcher of astrophysics, handling the imprint of the electromagnetic waves generated by galaxies billions of years ago. Yet, at this point, I started to doubt if I could continue being lucky. No earthquake shook faith, yet cracks built up through the years. Seeing too many “pointless” pieces of work being done, money, time, and perhaps career wasted. Some unethical players steal others for what? Just to publish something, to have a paper count. What is the point of it besides damping the whole academia? Look back to myself, am I really good at this? Am I really qualified? Do I know how to solve Schrödinger equations to calculate the quantum states of molecules in the interstellar medium? Do I really understand how to calculate the momentum transfer of a thick galactic disk with gas and stars rotating around? Do I really understand the radiative transfer of the optically thick dust and the lines coming through? I have seen so many blatantly made ignorant mistakes in the papers published… So, what are the points of all these? There are really good pieces of work out there by really “smart” and hardworking people. It is they who are the backbone of the skyscraper of astrophysics, and a lot of people are just pieces of paint on it.

I would not want to be the pigment but to make some real incremental contribution to our understanding of this world. I would like to make something significant, not grandiloquent; I would like to be honest, not fraudulent; I would like to make a difference, not fruitless. 

Life forks; the time that decisions have to be made is approaching. With the burden of searching for a meaning, a mystery shall be pondered upon.  

Feeling · Poem

晚霞

天空中飘动的橘红与风纠缠在一起,

吹着思绪闪烁跳跃。

脑海里旋律的最后一个音符上悬挂着回忆里的少年时代。

他融化在幻想的晚霞里,

在这个极北的国度里,无尽家族的完美世界里。

夏天的末,怅然若失,若有所得。

宇宙的终结,时间线的终点,他静静地坐在那里,

思索虚无。

 

黑暗之后的第一缕曙光,

周而复始的旋转,

平静的叹息。

 

In the sky, the orange-red flutters, entwined with the wind,

Stirring thoughts that flicker and jump.

In the mind, on the last note of the melody, hangs the adolescence from the memories,

He melts into the fantastical evening glow,

In this far northern land, in the perfect world of the endless clan.

At summer’s end, with a sense of loss and yet gaining something,

At the universe’s end, at the timeline’s endpoint, he quietly sits there,

Contemplating nothingness.

 

After the darkness, the first ray of dawn,

The cyclical rotation,

A tranquil sigh.

(Generated with MidJourney using the poem as the prompt)

Feeling · Life

二〇二二的新年

许久没有回过家了。

曾经在那里长大的那个家似乎成为了一个抽象的概念,遥远的事物,没有任何细节的颗粒质感。

我似乎已经将过去的自己渐渐写入了另一个平行的宇宙,与这个现实的丝线接连渐渐枯萎。

父母的样子,似乎永远定格在了过去,或者说我希望他们永远定格在过去,他们年轻时候的样子。那些年味还浓的年份,鞭炮声里,大家吃着吃腻了的饺子,吃不腻的卤肉,来回在亲戚家里串门,一遍遍来回数着红包. . . . . . 这仿佛是上辈子的事情。

脱离现实的宇宙,我发现自己在平行宇宙里越陷越深。而现实里的脱皮的被烟熏得发黄的粗糙墙面,逐渐变成了抽象的家里的墙,没有颜色,没有温度,也没有质感。如同父母的皱纹,逃脱了细胞层面的真实,变成了“衰老”这一个概念的抽象延伸。

然而,能够打动我们内心的不就是这些细节么?大脑是很难与抽象共情的。这是我们从单细胞进化到哺乳动物上亿年修炼的成果,烙在我们的基因里。

 

我许久没有回过家了。

大年三十的今天,我打开视频,再次触碰了那个我渐渐脱离的宇宙。眼眶湿润。